


Prince's Bastard

by AvinRyd, Sitical



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, But also, Gen, Lamen Kid!fic, Nicaise (Captive Prince) Lives, ye olde adventure story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-25 20:55:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 41,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16668142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvinRyd/pseuds/AvinRyd, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sitical/pseuds/Sitical
Summary: Tasha is on a quest—a quest to find her father, the Akielon noble who sired her at a coupling fire and then returned, only to steal away her mother and twin brother and leave her behind. He left her with two things: an emerald carved with the crest of a lion and starburst, and the words, “Find me at Marlas, if you wish.”Now a runaway from her own clan, Tasha must travel across the New Artesian Empire to seek a family she’s never known with only a supremely arrogant, mysterious, blue-eyed translator for company. Faces both familiar and new greet them on their way to the capitol, as well as seeds of unrest in the empire. And when they arrive at the capitol it’s not just Tasha’s secrets that are about to come to light…





	1. Chapter 1

It was raining, and I was cold. It had _been_ raining and I had _been_ cold for three days—three long, lonely days spent trudging along the mud road towards Artes. Well, the signpost at the last fork said it was the mud road to Vere, according to another traveler who’d taken the opposite path. Apparently nearly a decade and a half had done nothing to convince the Vaskian villagers to repaint.

My misery was of my own fault, of course. I was the one who wanted to arrive at Marlas before the fall equinox festival; I was the one who decided that would be the best time to enter the capital without issue; I was the one who had snuck out of my clan’s camp with nothing but bare minimum supplies during the wettest part of late summer. I hadn’t even been able to take my horse, and that made things all the worse. There was mud in my boots, long clumps of black hair clinging to my face, cold water dripping down my neck.  
  
I was on foot headed towards a country I’d never laid eyes on and I had very little hope of returning to my clan—all because of my miserable, twice-blessed and thrice-damned father. The old fury rose, hot and familiar in my chest, and I pushed forward with a bit more vigour.  
  
The outdated sign had also indicated a town up ahead, and I figured _that_ was important enough to be kept correct. The names of other kingdoms paled in comparison to the promise of hot food and a bed, after all. In a concentrated effort to not count each slogging step, I peered through the rainy twilight up ahead. It was just dark enough that the glow of lanterns in windows could be seen in the distance.  
  
Suddenly desperate for shelter where moments ago I’d been duly without hope of ever being warm again, I quickened my pace. There was coin in my purse, hanging from a cord around my neck tucked against my chest—enough to net me a room and something to eat from the town inn. There wouldn’t be enough for more than a few such stops, only enough for one more if I needed to purchase provisions, but I was too cold to give that much consideration.  
  
_Besides_ , I thought, _game is plentiful in the foothills and I’ll have pelts to sell when I arrive at the next town_.

If nothing else, I had my unflinching optimism.

**

The roads were better inside the town limits. Packed earth with cobbles near every dwelling didn’t devolve to mud as easily. The rain had started falling harder though, drops hitting my cheeks like a spray of gravel, and I made quick time towards the biggest building around. The architecture of the whole settlement was very Veretian, leaving me to wonder if I’d crossed the border or if a town’s worth of Veretians had crossed their way into Vask.

I ducked into the lamplit doorway and could have cried from the warmth I was immersed in; a fire crackled in the hearth across a wide dining area, a substantial number of people milled about, the smell of roasting meat wafted through the air.

Still processing, I had to ask the innkeeper to repeat himself when I noticed him speaking to me.

“I said, will you be requiring a room this evening?” His tone was kind, but had that lilt to it I knew too well. Drawing myself up, I tried to add an extra couple years appearance to my fifteen and replied,

“Yes. Food and drink as well.”

He nodded, taking a quick glance about the room before opening a ledger on the bar he stood by. “Two silver for the night, miss.”

I gave a breath of time, long enough to make him think I was hurting for the coin, then reached behind my back to my satchel and pulled out a soft fur pelt, just the size to line a collar or pair of child’s gloves. I offered it for inspection.

“Five coppers and this?”

His gaze was sharp, appraising. True to the smeared consonants of his accent, he had a Veretian eye for luxury and was making an accurate judge of the pelt: whole but small, processed to the most exacting of clanswoman standards, from a forest ferret in its older years and thus not as soft as others. It was worth almost exactly the silver-and-a-half I’d offered. He nodded eventually, saying,

“Six coppers and you’ve a deal.”

I reached into my shirt for the money. Briefly, my fingers brushed the other treasure hidden inside the pouch and I registered the touch of skin-warmed stone before snagging the required copper pieces.

Coins clattered softly to the wooden bartop and the innkeeper made a motion for me to proceed as I pleased. The soft look, the one that said I reminded him of his daughter or niece, was gone, replaced by the respect due a clanswoman merchant. Vindicated, I looked around for somewhere to sit.

The dining room wasn't full, but nor was the large space empty. Most tables had two or more patrons seated at them, save one at the back where a lone man was bent over something with a quill in hand. My gaze shifted to the bar and found a few who looked to be Artesian soldiers passing through and a woman dressed in the leather and homespun of the clans.

Without thought, I made for the pillar of familiarity, taking a seat at the counter near the clanswoman. She acknowledged my presence with a tip of her ale mug in my direction and I waved the barkeep over, requesting a mug of the house ale. The mug placed in front of me was topped with pale froth that, when I drank, stuck to my upper lip.

That first sip had me choking back a cough; there was a hint of summer fruits, signaling its local brewing, and it might have been pleasant but for the bitter burn of alcohol. I had never partaken of spirits during clan gatherings, uninterested in the taste of wine or the...effects of _hakesh_ , and the unfamiliar bite made my eyes water.

Next to me, the clanswoman gave a low laugh. “Strong ale is not for half-drowned kittens, my friend.”

I glared and took another drink, holding her gaze, but she just laughed again. “I tease, no need for the claws. Tell me, young one, what brings you here so long from market day?”

I took too long to answer. I hadn't considered what I was to tell someone in the event of this question. “Traveling” wasn't acceptable to a woman of the clans; I was too young. My silence had her eyebrows rising and, when I finally found my voice with the lame reply of, “Hunting,” she shook her head.

“Let's try this again, little runaway. I'm called Lentak. And you?”

“Tasha.” I took another bitter swig of ale. I knew the question that would come next and had to decide whether to answer truly—except I was wrong.

“What clan do you ride with?” Lentak's voice was warm with the knowledge that I rode with them no longer, but was probably still processing. I didn't take the out.

“I rode with the women of ironwood spears.”

“Ah, Halvik’s clan?”

I flinched a bit at the name. “Halvik, may she ride forever among the stars, fell not a year ago. Teleian leads now.”

“May the moon light her path,” Lentak said with sorrow, lowering her eyes in the proper way. “She was known to be a great warrior and shrewd border negotiator. Her soul will be missed.”

I nodded, carefully neutral. My feelings towards Halvik had been...complicated, at best. She'd led the clan my whole life, but had also stifled every attempt I'd made at literally anything. Not that Teleian was any better, but Halvik… I didn't want to discuss it, so—

“What brings _you_ here at such an unseasonable time?”

“Delivering a commission,” Lentak replied and reached into a belt pouch to withdraw a small wooden sample chip. The piece of oak was intricately carved with a galloping horse. She flipped it to me and I caught it, examining the design, listening as she continued, “The smithy down the street commissioned a design from me and my brother on our last visit. Our work is well known in town.”

I nodded and slid the chip back. “You’re very skilled. Are you of a free clan, then? Or does your brother ride with another?”

“Yes, we ride together. The Weaving Roots clan has all manner of riders. Now—” Lentak dropped her mug on the counter with a decisive thunk, “ —you, child. What’s drawn you from your tent so young, hmm?”

By this time, I’d decided that the truth wasn’t going to hurt me in the hands of another clanswoman. I sighed, trying not to sound as angry as I felt.

“My father was an Akielon noble who shared in the coupling fire and then returned when I was very young, looking for an heir. I didn’t meet the criteria, but my twin brother did and he took him and my mother away.

“I was left with Halvik to grow up a clanswoman, and I suppose she wanted me to forget. I didn’t. He left me a token and said I should find him at Marlas if I ever wished. Now I wish it.”

As she listened, Lentak’s face had grown contemplative. When I finished she nodded, then gave me a shrewd look and said something unintelligible. It was obviously language, not gibberish, with soft vowels and consonants that blurred into each other. It lilted and flowed like water before ‘shush’ing to a stop. I stared.

“No?” she asked, then spoke again. Still not Vaskian, these words were open and musical. No blurred sounds this time; harder consonants set off the vowels in such a way as to make them echo. This language sounded old, like mountains could be built on it. Mountains I could never climb, because I was still just as lost.

Lentak’s mouth curled up at one corner and she spoke once again in Vaskian. “Little Tasha, you’ll never get to Delfur if you don’t speak either of the Imperial languages.”

Heat flushed my face and I was glad my paternally-gained dark skin hid it. Damn. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Of _course_ not everyone in the empire spoke Vaskian—three hells, Vaskian probably wasn’t spoken much at all.

I could feel my eyes going wide in horror, ice forming in the pit of my stomach. If I couldn’t get to the capital, where would I go? I had no clan anymore, no way to get to the family I’d never met; I was a girl alone in a strange tavern with no friends.

Possibly seeing the panic building in my eyes, Lentak reached over and laid a hand on my arm.

“Breathe, girl. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said never. It will be difficult, but—” she looked around, gaze settling on the lone man at the back table, “—I might know someone who can help. Come with me.”

She scooped up her mug of ale and started across the room. Cautious, I stood to follow.

I’d heard of the Weaving Roots clan, met a few of them on market days. They had a reputation of being a kind sort, which their acceptance of free riders spoke to. Past that, Lentak had no obligation to point out my foolish lack of knowledge. She could have just as easily let me walk off to my ignorant demise. If this character we were off to meet wasn’t completely untrustworthy on sight, they probably weren’t a threat.

My drink stayed on the counter as I kept at Lentak’s heels and we wove between the tables, conversation buzzing around us and woodsmoke wafting through the air.

When we reached the table farthest from the door, closest to the fire, Lentak sat herself on the bench and slammed her ale down on the table, pulling me down beside her. The man across from us didn’t look up from his writing, didn’t so much as flinch. For at least a minute, no one spoke. Lentak just stared at him, tapping one finger on the table repeatedly.

Finally, he said, “You’re sitting in my light.” His words were sharply precise and he didn’t raise his eyes from the paper before him.

“Technically,” Lentak replied, “ _she’s_ sitting in your light.”

The man looked up at that, bright blue eyes flashing from under dark hair in what firelight reached him.

Lentak hadn’t lied; my shadow was falling directly on his scribblings and I scooted sideways enough to fix it. He didn’t go back to writing, though. He looked at me, then Lentak, then me, then her again.

“I told you I’m done ferrying. I deliver messages, not drowned rats.”

Very suddenly, I found I wanted to break his nose. I was about to say as much when Lentak replied,

“Come now, she’ll eat the rats. She’s at least a drowned cat.”

The man snorted and turned his attention to me, gaze assessing, shrewd, unimpressed. “So what’s your story, then? If it’s true love across language barriers you’ve come to the wrong man.”

I could feel my eyebrows going up, an incredulous sound catching in my throat. “What? Who _are_ you?”

“I’m a silvertongue.” When I stayed clueless, he continued with exasperation, “A translator; a messenger across this ridiculous empire that can’t even talk to itself; a writer of letters, _not_ a courier of lost children.” This last bit was shot at Lentak, who gave a pointed look back.

“Nesson, you’ve had different shadow tagging at your heels every time we’ve met. And I know for a fact you’re headed to Delfur. Just take this one along with you.”

“What use do I have for the ‘nth Vaskian child who wants to find their father? And a sullen one who can’t communicate with anyone, to boot? Finding every lost parent from the coupling fires is a lost cause and you know it.”

I’d had enough of this.

“I’m right here,” I snapped, “and I’m not so sure I want to be going with you, either. Lentak, why did you want me to meet this man? He obviously has no interest in helping me.”

Lentak took a long draft of ale before replying, “Because he’s the best silvertongue in the empire. He speaks both Imperial languages better than most, writes them with a clean hand, and can be trusted to keep true to your words. His messages rarely go astray and he can be good traveling company. Convince him to take you along and you’ll make it to Marlas safely, I have no doubt.”

“Hmmm.”

I studied them. Nesson was giving Lentak a dry sort of look and I wondered what he’d done to earn such a strong regard from her. It’d obviously been something big.

His unpleasant demeanor aside, I didn’t find him terribly ominous. He was younger than Lentak, but not by much. I would have guessed him to be thirty-five years. Certainly older than me. And he was exactly the right profession I needed, tutor and guide both.

With the right offer, I could probably convince him to escort me to Marlas. I was loath to need one in the first place, but it was obviously a necessary evil. Decided, I braced my forearms on the table and leaned forward.

“Alright. Take me with you and I can make it worth your trouble.”

Nesson raised one dark eyebrow. “Can you?”

“Yes.” It was an effort not to squirm under his intense disdain. “I can hunt, I can fight, I can earn my own keep and,” I reached into my coin purse and drew out my most treasured possession, my trump card, “I can guarantee a reward.”

A quick glance around confirmed no one was watching us with any unusual interest, so I opened my hand to reveal the token within. Barely larger than a gold sideris coin, it was a clear emerald, cut round and smooth, carved and inlaid with white enamel. The crest it bore was a lion with a mane shaped in a starburst. I didn’t know the family the crest belonged to, but the token itself was proof enough of my father’s wealth.

Nesson’s shocked gaze and Lentak’s sharp inhale confirmed I’d made my point. Quick as a snake strike, Nesson reached out and closed my grip around the token once more.

“Don’t flash that around. Do you want bandits to fall on us before we even leave the town limits?”

“Us?”

He scrutinized my face—looking for something?—and them nodded, resigned to his decision. “Yes, us. You do as I say, without question, and I’ll see you to your father safely.”

“By the fall equinox,” There was no drink in front of him but Nesson choked regardless, still coughing as I continued, “and I’ll be fluent in one of the Imperial languages by the time we arrive.”

“The equinox is barely two months away and we’re on foot. You’re delusional, girl.”

“We’ll make it if we don’t make any unnecessary stops.”

“And my business? I make a living off of your ‘unnecessary stops’.”

I rapped my knuckles on the table, knuckles of the fist holding my token. “My skills can support us on the journey and your payoff when we arrive should more than compensate your losses.”

There was only the hum of tavern noise for a time as we stared each other down, Lentak wearing an amused smile in the background.

Finally, Nesson broke.

“Alright, fine. But we make one stop at a town four days journey from here, Loren. I have letters that need handing off and I’ll take whatever work I can find there. One night and then we head straight for Delfur. Deal?”

That was probably as good as I was going to get. Marlas wasn’t actually that far on foot—we were at the south end of the empire’s border with Vask—but I’d figured on bad weather and mild troubles on the road and Nesson’s stop would be cutting it close. I didn’t think I could budge him, though, so I reached to my belt for a knife. Nesson’s mouth twisted.

“Veretians don’t typically swear blood oaths, little rat.”

“It’s Tasha,” I snapped back, dropping my hand from the knife handle. And, just like that, the arrangement was made.

While we’d been negotiating, Lentak had flagged down the boy serving tables, probably the innkeep’s son, and ordered food brought to us, and it arrived soon after. Between bites of stew-drenched bread, I listened to the other two at the table converse.

Lentak, whose accent I hadn’t noticed when we first started speaking, began to let her words twist and drawl in an unfamiliar way. A few times, either she or Nesson used words I’d never heard before, or heard in wildly different contexts.

Regardless, the conversation was easy enough to follow and I learned that Lentak was a regular visitor to the town for trade reasons and that this inn was the furthest point on Nesson’s eastern route. They’d just wandered off into a tangent about cities and roadways I knew nothing about when Nesson suddenly addressed me.

“Have you been following all of this?”

I nodded before fishing out another potato from my bowl of stew.

“I’ve never heard Vaskian spoken quite like you’ve been, but it’s not hard to figure out. Why?”

Nesson shrugged, saying, “Just want to know how miserable teaching you is going to be,” before returning to his discussion of roadways with Lentak. I felt my eyebrows draw together in a scowl as I returned to my dinner. Somehow, I had a feeling this was going to be a long journey.

 

* * *

 

Art by the wonderful [Sitical](http://sitical.tumblr.com/post/180263559746/for-avinryd-s-captive-prince-big-bang)!!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. I don't have a whole lot to say other than thank GOD we're here. I've never written longfic before and this has been one holy heck of a ride. (a ride that's still not over but that's neither here nor there.)
> 
> Huge shout-out to my wonderful artist, Sitical, for her amazing work! Like, look at that?! 
> 
> And another shout-out the rest of the wonderful people here in the Capri fandom for making this awesome event possible. I can't wait to read/see everyone's stuff!


	2. Chapter 2

Nesson was a very light sleeper, I discovered. The sky beyond the mountains had begun to glow and I woke with it, padding across my room to use the chamber pot and such. Almost before I’d finished dressing, there was a knock on my door. When I opened it, my new traveling companion was there, completely packed and obviously ready to be off.

“I’m in the room over; I heard you clattering about,” was the only explanation he gave, even though I knew I’d been nearly silent.

Doing my best to shrug off my irritation, I finished packing the last of my things and followed him down to the dining area once more. Another two coppers got us breakfast for the road—bread, cheese from the inn goat’s milk, and an apple each—and we left the tiny hamlet.

We’d barely been walking fifteen minutes when Nesson stopped and turned to face me.

“Alright rat, if you’re going to sound even a little bit cultured by the time we make it to the capital, you need to do exactly as I say.” I nodded and he continued, “From now until we reach Loren, I’ll teach you the basics of both Akielon and Veretian. After that, you will not speak any Vaskian in my presence.”

“ _What?_ ”

He kept on going as if I hadn’t spoken.

“Unless you show a particular aptitude for Akielon, or are otherwise incapable, you will speak only Veretian for the rest of the way, regardless of what our traveling companions speak. Understood?”

I was still sputtering over his first statement. “Four days? How am I supposed to ask you anything important after that?”

His shoulders twitched up in a shrug. “In Veretian, obviously.”

I nearly threw something at him. Pointedly ignoring my indignation, Nesson kept walking, speeding up his stride and leaving me to catch up.

I didn’t catch up for a few long minutes, lagging behind to fume and then, once I’d gotten that out of my system, to examine our surroundings. The rain had stopped at some point the night before and left behind a fog that the sun had yet to burn off.

I’d put the forests of the foothills behind me yesterday and most of the land around was scrub land studded with small clusters of trees; waking birdsong rang from the closest of them, all of the calls still familiar. I wondered if there would be different ones the farther south we went.

Everything was peaceful and I had a sneaking suspicion that, as soon as I caught up with Nesson, I wouldn’t be having any more peace for a very long time. The longer I stalled, though, the less time I had to learn Nesson’s “basics” before having to abandon my native tongue entirely, so I eventually quickened my pace.

The basics, it turned out, were long back-and-forths of sounds my mouth had never made before, tutorials on the most simple of phrases and, bafflingly, history lessons. I dutifully parroted back and analyzed and listened until, in the middle of a tedious lecture on the Veretian hatred of bastards, I snapped.

“Why is this important? We’re in the Artesian empire now, not Vere. They have two kings; the royal heir will have to be a bastard, so why does this matter?”  
  
“ _We_ have two kings,” Nesson corrected calmly, “And it matters because your father is obviously a noble who moves in court circles. A court half composed of born-and-bred Veretians who won’t appreciate your bastard origins. I assumed you’d want to know why.”

Heat started creeping up the back of my neck and I could feel the tips of my ears turning red. I tried to force the blush down, refusing to be ashamed of my parentage. Nearly every woman of the matriarchal clans was born of the coupling fires and, as much as I wanted to meet my blood family, I would not let them take away my pride as a clanswoman. My father had taken enough, he would not take the one thing I had left.

“The court is half Akielon,” I said, hoping to distract Nesson from my reaction, “Wouldn’t that have influenced them, at least a little?”

Nesson laughed and I tried not to flinch. It was a cold sound.

“No, it wouldn’t. Before the unification, the Exalted’s bastard brother killed their father and usurped the throne. Akielos and Vere have bonded over this issue more than resolved it. I hear it’s making life rather difficult for the royal family, for the exact reason you said.”

I decided I didn’t like how Nesson talked about court, how icy his demeanor got and how flat his voice fell. I didn’t ask how he knew my father moved in court circles, and I didn’t ask how he knew so much about the empire’s politics.

Instead, I cast my eyes about for something, _anything_ , found a wildflower just off the path and moved to pick it. Coming back, I asked in what was probably the most mangled Veretian ever spoken,

“How do you call this in Veretian?”

That earned me an eye roll and Nesson replied in kind, “You mean ‘What is this called in Veretian’, and it’s called a Witch’s Bell.”

“Because of the poison in the stem?” I asked, switching back to Vaskian and he nodded.

“I would assume so. Now, let’s go over how to ask questions in a more functional way.”

We spent the rest of the day talking in that vein. I would ask a stumbling question and he’d answer in a pretentiously perfect manner before spiraling off into another lesson. If I was honest with myself, it was an enjoyable way to pass the time if I ignored the irritating jabs at my lack of skill.

Also the fact that he refused to use my name. I was always “rat” or, if he was being particularly condescending, “kitten”. I vehemently wished Lentak had never used that nickname because Nesson was never going to let it drop.

Midday came and went with only a brief pause to pull food out of our bags and then we were off again, eating our lunches between steadily more barbed comments in shifting Vaskian and Veretian. Before the sun set I’d learned some stunningly vulgar Veretian curses and was longing for sleep just to get away from the spinning of my brain.

We came upon a cleared patch of ground just off the road that’d clearly been used as a campsite before. If his familiarity with the area was anything to go by, Nesson himself had camped there often. I dropped to the ground near the remnants of a firepit and began to dig through my bag. I’d pulled out string, sticks, and a few choice pebbles before Nesson threw his own pack down beside me and eyed my supplies sidelong.

“What are you doing?”

I didn’t look up. “I said I’d earn my keep, didn’t I? I’ll be back and we’ll have breakfast by morning.”

Scooping up my snare kit, I stalked from the camp and into a copse of trees across the road. The trees were calming. Not every forest was the same, but the sounds were close enough that I felt familiarity sink into my bones.

The underbrush showed signs of at least a rabbit and two or three squirrels that lived nearby and, after giving the area a once-over, I set my traps accordingly. Before I left, I let my eyes skim over the trees and memorize what I’d placed where, then returned to our camp.

Nesson had started a fire while I was gone and it fizzed and smoked. The wood around was damp and didn’t burn nicely, but the warmth was welcome enough. My breakfast from the inn was long gone, and I’d broken into some of my pre-dried supplies over midday, so whatever I got from the forest tonight would be a valuable addition.

A chunk of hard cheese dropped into my lap. Looking up, I saw Nesson staring into the fire from across. He met my gaze and raised an eyebrow. I picked up the cheese and grabbed a piece of firebaked bread from my pack.

“Throwing food over an open fire is a good way to lose your dinner,” was all I said.

He snorted and went back to his contemplation of the fire. We didn’t talk after that, just ate and then laid out our bedrolls to sleep.

Just past midnight, a tell-tale crack of two rocks colliding woke me. Silent, stringing my bow just in case something lurked in the night, I crossed the road and went in search of the snare I’d set. That’d been the ground one I’d heard and, sure enough, I found a decent-sized rabbit caught by the back leg.

I ended the encounter quickly and gutted it while still across the road. Hopefully the easy meal would be enough to keep any bigger animals from disturbing our camp. Before I returned to my bedroll I stoked the coals and started the meat drying over smoldering embers. Nesson didn’t stir, though I guessed it was an act. Satisfaction in a job well done faded to a tired desire for sleep and I didn’t stir the rest of the night.

**

Morning came too early for my tastes after having been up so late, and I wasn’t up with the sun as I had been the day before.

I woke to Nesson dousing the fire and laying the dried rabbit meat near my pack. Scrubbing sleep from my eyes I moved briskly through my morning necessities and we were packed and ready to go just as the tallest trees were tipped with morning gold.

Nesson groused and grumbled when I took extra time to stretch the rabbit’s skin over a frame before we left the next morning. I told him in carefully enunciated Veretian exactly where he could shove his bad attitude and, with that tone established, we set off.

The second day passed much like the first, with Veretian history and Veretian vocabulary and Veretian snobbery.

We’d touched on the basics of Akielon in the days before, but on our third day Nesson went into it in earnest. The way he talked, both about the language and when he spoke it, I was sure it was his second language. Not that his coloring hadn’t given that away, but he’d spoken of Veretian customs with slight respect, at least, even when they were obviously ridiculous. He scoffed at many of the Akielon traditions, though he covered them in just as much detail.

Akielon was harder to wrap my head around, which I found strange. Absurdly, I’d imagined that my southern heritage would give some sort of inherited understanding of the language. I was very, very wrong. I liked how direct and straightforward the language was, but the sounds felt wrong, the words felt wrong, the entire cadence of its speaking just felt _wrong_. I brought it up to Nesson, who laughed.

“It’s the language of brutes and barbarians, what did you expect?”

I didn’t say anything to him for the rest of the day; I was too choked up anger to even try. The worst part was, for all that his words riled up some long-buried attachment to my heritage, I didn’t know if he was right.

 _I_ certainly wasn’t a brute, or a barbarian—at least, not in the way Veretians considered Akielons barbaric—but the only Akielon I’d ever known had behaved in a rather barbaric, brutish way, hadn’t he? Breaking up a family? Stealing away a mother and child from their home while leaving another child behind, alone?

I didn’t know. I didn’t know and I didn’t even have the words to scream at Nesson about just how much I didn’t know and how much I hated him for bringing it up. So I didn’t. I kept my mouth shut and didn’t speak to him for the rest of the evening.

I didn’t speak to him all that night.

I didn’t speak to him the next morning.

It was probably for the best that I was only set to learn Veretian, anyway.

**

We joined a caravan of Veretian merchants just past midday of my silence and, rather than ask Nesson for advice on how to be polite, I just struck up a conversation with one of the men walking beside their wagon—their obnoxiously bright orange wagon.

Between bites of my lunch and gales of laughter at my terrible Veretian manners, I learned that the man’s name was Josse, that his father was assistant to the leader of this cloth merchant caravan, and that he was very bored. The way he told it, merchant life had been advertised as exciting. His father had come back with wild stories of adventure and intrigue after every trip in his youth.

Now, having been a fetch and carry man for five years, Josse was beginning to wonder if his father and their employer, Charls, weren’t just extravagant liars.

Even this trip, he lamented, had promised to be something interesting, what with the slew of murders associated with the crown occurring. Charls had hired extra guards for the caravan and everything, as he was apparently convinced that they were in danger from these same villains. But no—Josse slumped dramatically against the wagon at this point and almost got a face full of mud for it—Nesson and I were the most exciting thing to happen in the past two weeks.

I followed his story doggedly. Every few sentences I had to request he slow down or repeat a phrase, and my face burned hotter with every grin my terrible pronunciation earned. Eventually, as Josse’s woebegotten tale was drawing to the present, a window in the wagon’s enclosure opened up to reveal an old man’s face.

I’d never seen a man at his age look so well-pleased with life, so comfortable in luxury with the laugh lines and round face to prove it. I assumed this was the infamous Charls, teller of tall tales. Before he said anything to me, which it seemed like he planned to, the man’s eyes fell just beyond me and his face lit up.

“Nesson!” Charls cried with an energy I hadn’t expected, “I thought I heard one of your pupils mangling my language!”

The shutter closed with a snap and there was a shuffle and clamor from inside the wagon. After a moment and what sounded like several cautionary exclamations from the wagon’s other occupants, Charls emerged onto the seat next to the driver, waving to Nesson enthusiastically.

“Come sit up here, my boy. I want to hear all of the tales you’ve collected!”

And, rather than scoff and tell Charls to get his gossip elsewhere as I expected, Nesson rolled his eyes to the heavens and swung himself up onto the trundling orange monstrosity.

Surreptitiously, I made my way towards the front of the wagon, interested in hearing some of these looked-to tales but unwilling to let Nesson realize. I was also curious how someone as unpleasant and callous as my tutor had cultivated such an enthusiastic rapport with Charls, but I ended up slinking back to Josse’s side in disappointment. Obviously he and everyone else had been making concessions to my lack of skill because Nesson and Charls spoke so quickly I hardly caught a word every sentence. Josse gave me a sympathetic clap on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry too much,” he said, “all those stories’ll get told to death over dinner at the inn tonight, I’ll wager.”

Inn? My thoughts drew up short. I’d forgotten, Nesson wanted to stop four days past our meeting place. We must have been approaching Loren, which meant we would be sharing lodgings with the cloth merchants that night. I hadn’t realized how content I was to have other company on the road, and was unexpectedly glad not to be separating from them so soon.

Some of the caravan guard drifted over to talk occasionally, but the rest of the day traveling I mostly spent in intent conversation with Josse. I’d never talked at length with anyone not of the clans, excluding Nesson, and his stories and outlooks on the world were fascinating. The fact that I was listened to, smiled at, didn’t hurt either.

**

With all of Charls’ party, Loren's small inn was filled to bursting. Nesson had left me with them to run whatever errands he’d come to town with and I tried not to feel like a child left in the caregiver tents.

To keep the petulance off my face, I sat myself with the guard Charls had hired. Two of the women were mercenaries hired from some of the northern clans of Vask and, since Nesson was gone, I gratefully sank back into comfortable conversation with them. I was in the middle of a story about my first attempts at shooting a bow when someone cleared their throat behind me. Loudly.

I continued my story after a slight stutter, but in clumsy Veretian because I _knew_ who that had been. The guardswomen raised their eyebrows but obligingly switched languages with me when I’d wrapped up the tale. Barely after I’d responded to one of their comments, Nesson grabbed me by the arm and pulled me along to the table where Charls and a few other men sat.

“Come on, Charls has invited us to join him and you don't get to stop practicing just because you’re sulking.”

I said nothing but sat where I was put, determined to be as mannerly as possible. I’d show him just what kind of brutish barbarian I was. We’d gone over Veretian social customs soon after setting out originally and I wracked my brains for them now. Charls was obviously at the head of the table, with Josse and his father, Guilliame to his right, Nesson and myself to his left. Oddly close, I though. Silvertongues must be more important than he’d ever let on to me.

Charls caught my eye and smiled indulgently and I managed to keep my groan internal, but only just. He _would_ be one of those men, and I couldn’t do a thing to stop it in this situation. I smiled with all the summer sun of the mountains and returned the greeting he gave, kicking Nesson under the table when he snorted.

The cloth merchant had other things to occupy him, though, and I soon fell out of interest. This was just dinner in a tavern, but I knew from the way Nesson glanced at me that it was meant to be more practice. My family was noble and he expected me to act as such.

Part of me was tempted to be a terror out of spite, since these people obviously though him a respectable tradesman in his own right, but more of me saw where his reasons came from. So, reluctantly, I kept my back straight, used more than just my belt knife to eat, and acknowledged anytime the conversation even so much as glanced my way with a smile and eye contact. It was absolutely exhausting and I didn’t like how that boded for what might be the rest of my life.

“You know, Nesson,” said Charls, cheeks pinked from what had to have been his third cup of wine, if not his fourth, “Every time I hear your name, I think of your namesake.”

“Namesake?” I asked, leaning around Nesson to make sure the question reached. I had a suspicious feeling Nesson was about to derail this conversation.

“Yes, namesake. The person, place, or thing someone is named after.”

It was a very good thing a person separated me from Charls. Just because I didn’t know the word didn’t mean I was in need of syrup-coated explanations.

“Your mentor here was named after a town just north of here, a town where I had a most auspicious encounter.”

The mentor in question sighed loudly. “Yes Charls, I think we’ve all heard exactly what happened in Nesson-Eloy.”

“I haven’t.” Nesson tried to glare at me, but I leaned farther forward, keeping my starry-eyed gaze on Charls. All an act, but I was curious and wasn’t about to let my obnoxious traveling companion quash it.

Charls lapped up the attention, practically preening to have an audience for his tale. His voice turned conspiratorial, though still loud enough to be heard by everyone at the table.

“Well,” he began, “it was at an inn, very like this, where I met a man who claimed to be a Patran cloth merchant and his pet, a man of surpassing beauty. They both stood out to me immediately, so I made conversation with the merchant who called himself Lamen. He was well-spoken as any noble and struck me with his insights on trade and fair labor. His companion, though, was more striking by far. Clever and quick, fair as the sunrise over the sea he was.

“We didn’t talk long, the merchant and I, but later that night there was a huge to-do at the inn.”

Charls paused here to take a long drink of wine and I saw that every other member of our table was trying hard to keep expressions of interest. They were all in various states of failure—obviously this story had worn out its welcome years ago. Refreshed, Charls continued,

“Not an hour past midnight all of the tenants were dragged awake by the Royal guard, crying that the runaway Prince of Vere himself had been tracked to our inn! The whole place was in an uproar, but apparently the prince had escaped.

“I didn’t see Lamen or his pet, so I had my suspicions, but I knew for sure when Lamen came bursting in as we were all settling down, desperate for a horse. I, of course, gave him the best we had, and that was the last I saw of them. Until, not a month later—”

“Do we really need a full account of the Unification tonight?”

That was Josse, speaking what the whole party was obviously thinking. Unwilling to stand out, I sat back in my seat even though I wanted to hear the rest of the tale. Meeting a prince in disguise sounded like a fantastic adventure—much more interesting than traipsing across the empire with an intolerable silvertongue, at any rate. Charls made to continue on regardless, but the spell was broken and he was drowned out by a slew of new voices.

The evening progressed merrily after that. All of the merchant company drank liberally of the house wine and began to mill about the dining area. Musicians in a corner struck up when coins came their way. The music was unfamiliar, full of high trilling melodies on a flute and droning notes from a strange, clockwork instrument in one of the musician’s laps, and the unfamiliarity of the entire thing kept me from accepting the offered hands to dance or drink.

I did, eventually, drift away from the table we’d all started at. Nesson’s glaring was starting to get oppressive and our bench was nearer to the fire than I liked. I’d just started to relax into the tavern atmosphere, something still so new, when Josse sauntered over from wherever he’d been off drinking.

“You’re scowling, Tash.” His smile was easy, friendly. I tried to relax my face in response. “Don’t tell me that old grump’s still got you angry.”

I scoffed, moving to brush hair from my face but found my wrist caught before the movement finished. Josse held my arm, examining the horse-hair bracelets looped around it. Laughing to cover my surprise, I tugged my hand free and finished clearing the hair from my eyes.

“Old grump? You mean Nesson? He can’t be that much older than you.”

He just gave a shrug in response, moving to lean against the wall I stood by. “Yes well, he’s still a grump. And he remembers plenty from before the Unification, which makes him old in my book. I was still a kid when it all went down, don’t remember much.” His Veretian was faster than it had been, and blurring between the words. That and the tavern noise made his meaning hard to catch; I nodded along anyway.

“In the interests of cultural exchange,” Josse went on, “I hear the Vaskian camps have these—” I didn’t know the word he used, but the expression on his face gave me a fair idea of what he’d meant, “ —and I was wondering. Did you ever...participate?”

I shook my head. “No, I wasn’t old enough until this year. Not without—”

“So you’re telling me,” he interrupted, straightening up and stepping closer; there was spirit on his breath, too much heat radiating off of him, a new gleam to his gaze, “that you’ve never—”

“We’re starting early, rat; better get some sleep.” A hand clamped hard on my shoulder. “Or did you want to extend our ‘unnecessary stop’ longer into the morning?”

My heart hammered painfully in my chest, though I wondered if it had begun with Nesson’s startling interjection, or before. Nodding jerkily, I stepped away from the men and headed towards the stairwell across the room. Behind, I heard Nesson growl something sharp at Josse before following after. Longer legs meant he caught me up before I reached the top of the stairs and before we split for our separate rooms, he said,

“Be angry all you like, but don’t be stupid on top of it.”

I swallowed hard, not looking at him. “I didn’t… He’s Veretian, isn’t he? I thought that wasn’t done.”

The huff of breath Nesson let out wasn’t an expression I’d heard from him before. I looked up to see a strange look on his face: resigned, disgusted and tired.

“There are plenty of things ‘not done’ that still manage to happen anyway, on this end of the empire as well as the other. You find barbaric, vile people wherever you go, it seems.”

That was as close to an apology as I was going to get. Neither of us said anything else before retiring, but the silence wasn’t heavy and I didn’t dread setting out just the two of us in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Charls! Of all the existing canon characters to introduce, who better to start with than him? I've always imagined him becoming a less slimy, more grandfatherly Professor Slughorn-like kind of guy in his old age.
> 
> Keep posted on this and the rest of my adventures in Capri hell over at @pointsofhonor on tumblr!


	3. Chapter 3

We left early, before anyone but the innkeeper and her daughter were awake. No farewells were said to Charls or any of his party, and I was perfectly happy with that outcome; after the night before, I had no desire to tangle with Josse and his interests in “cultural exchange” again.

The pre-dawn air was chilly and I tugged my roughspun cloak closer about me. At my movements, Nesson cast a critical eye over me and sighed, 

“We’ll have to find you proper clothes before you go off searching for your family. No noble family is going to believe you’re their daughter looking like that.”

I glared, eyeing him in turn. I hadn’t really paid attention to clothes before yesterday, and only then because Charls and Josse didn’t shut up about them. Nesson’s shirt and pants were plain, free of the ornate patterns the cloth merchants had eagerly displayed in their merchandise, but seemed well-made. His dark vest was well-tooled leather and laced up the front. It was more like a jerkin, actually, for all Nesson seemed like a scholar rather than a warrior. 

He wore a cloak over all, same as I did, but it was of a nicer weave and fell to his knees. I suddenly realized I looked very ragtag and wild next to him in my furs and homespun. My ears started to burn, but I shrugged and kept walking.

“There’ll be a market in the capital, right? I can find something then.”

“More like six or seven,” he admitted. “Do you have any clue how to negotiate with city merchants? It’s different than bartering pelts for nights at an inn.”

When I shook my head, he started explaining in quick, complex Veretian, leaving my brain spinning to catch up. We walked on.

**

“Is that story Charls told true? About the prince?”

Evening had fallen and our conversation with it. Trees grew thick around us, their gloom lending a mystery to the air. I found myself thinking of adventure again, and of intrigue and disguise.

“What makes you think I’d know that? Vere was a big kingdom, even before the Unification.”

I shrugged. “You were named after the town. I thought you might have lived there.”

“No.”

We were quiet again for some time. It was Nesson’s “I’m thinking of something” quiet, so I kept walking, listening to the sounds of the forest. Eventually, he said,

“If you must know, I was in Arles at the time. We all thought he was going to Ravenel to attend to his duties on the border. I did end up traveling to Nesson-Eloy later on, out of curiosity, but of course by then everything had died down. I met Lentak there.”

Nesson had never given so much as a hint of his existence as anything other than grouchy silvertongue and I didn’t dare interrupt. I got the feeling this wasn’t something he talked about often.

“According to her mother, the prince stopped at a whore house owned by some enterprising clanswomen before his encounter with Charls at the inn. He was towing around some giant barbarian I can only assume was His Exalted Majesty, King Damianos.” 

The way Nesson said the king’s full title, snobbish and affected in a very Veretian manner, made me giggle.

“You should laugh. I saw the man in passing on their way out of the capital; he was ridiculous, especially next to the prince.”

“Were you a part of the court? Is that why you know so much about manners and etiquette and all of that?”

“No.” Nesson’s open, playful manner of speaking dropped closed like a steel trap, “And it’s not very smart to pry into people's business so bluntly. If you’re going to get information, you do it with stealth, not brute force.”

_ He remembers plenty from before the Unification _ , Josse had said, and I’d blocked that font of information with my stupid question. Apparently I needed to learn more than just Vereitan language before we reached the city.

**

After my ill-considered prodding into Nesson’s past, I spent the the next two days taking his advice on subtlety and rebuilding my goodwill with him from the bottom up. By the time we stopped for the night our third day out of Loren, we’d somewhat regained an easy rapport—easy enough for him to grouse, 

“If you don’t want to ever get a full night’s sleep, that’s your business, but I happen to enjoy being well rested in the mornings.” 

Nesson’s voice was a sleepy growl from across our darkened campsite. Secure in the cover of night, I stuck my tongue out in his general direction.

“It’s not my fault you wake up when squirrels so much as breathe,” I hissed back. 

I tested the string of my bow before grabbing my arrows and heading out of camp. We’d been traveling through dense forest for the last two days and tonight we’d camped out in a tiny space mostly cleared of trees and brush. One of my branch snares had triggered and, considering there was going to be a huge market on the Equinox festival, I wasn’t about to let it lie. There was a rustle from behind me as I left—Nesson falling back onto his bedroll in a huff, I assumed.

The canopy was dense above my head, blocking out the sky, but it wouldn’t matter even so. Clouds had rolled in from the west that morning—leftovers from a sea-born storm, Nesson had said—and they blackened the night around me better than any tree cover. I remembered where all of my snares were, of course, but my movements weren’t quite the silent stealth I wanted. A twig cracked under my foot and I winced. 

A few minutes of careful stepping later and I could see the moon-bright pebbles of my snare hanging two feet above my head. As I’d suspected, there was a bird caught in its strings; it was hard to tell in the dark, but I thought it was one of the strange Veretian birds with shining blue-black feathers. It still moved, rustling and letting out the occasional tired squak. 

I hung my bow on an arm-level branch, leaned my three arrows beside it, and hoisted myself up into the tree. I scrambled up a branch, a foot closer. Another pull and I was inches from the snare. I’d just reached for it, fingers brushing silky feathers, when there was a sudden noise below me and I felt rough hands wrap around my ankles.

I screamed, clinging to the nearest branches with both hands as my feet were pulled out from under me. Heart in my throat, I tried not to panic, tried to assess what was going on. I was high up, too high for anyone to be grabbing at me with any strength; my assailant’s arms had to be extended far above their head. That was as far as my thoughts could get before I had to act. Curling into myself with arms and core, I yanked my legs back towards the tree then, with a hard shove, threw myself backwards.

It worked. I felt the grip on my legs go slack as whoever it was flailed and stumbled backwards. I sailed over their head before falling back first towards the ground. Due to luck more than anything, I hit the ground in a curl, rolling back over one shoulder and coming up with a hand already on my belt knife. 

Above me in the dark I could see a large figure—a man, most probably. He was still finding his footing, trying to turn, but I didn’t let him. My knife flashed out in an arc of silvery steel and caught him behind both knees.

His scream was louder than mine had been—more of a bellow—and he keeled over, still yelling. Under his racket I could hear noises all around, branches cracking and the rasp of boots in brush: more people. I guessed at the closest, whipped around to my left—and I was wrong. 

I saw him, alright, but then two arms grabbed me from behind, wrapping under my armpits and pulling my shoulders back viciously. I yelled, flailed, tried to squirm away, but it was useless. My feet dangled inches from the ground, and I could barely breathe for the compression in my chest.

From the shadows three other figures emerged, making six in all. The one in front of me said something in...I didn’t know what. It was low, growling and rough. Akielon, maybe? Yes, I could catch a familiar word or two in all the gravel. The one holding me replied in kind; foul, hot breath gusting on my neck, his hold on me tightening even further. I gasped and got a blow to the side of my face in response.

My captor spoke again, now sharply directed at the one who’d hit me. I heard “first” and “Patras”, and then something about “training” and “useless”. Thank you, Nesson, for insulting me in every language known to the kingdoms.

The strange, heavily accented dialect was just starting to fade into the roar of blood in my ears, the fire of my ribcage pulling apart, when the arms holding me jerked and the pillar of a man stumbled. He let out a sound as if I’d punched him in the gut even though I’d done no such thing, and his grip went oddly rigid. Within moments I was free, sliding down and slipping my arms out of their slackened bonds. 

Chaos exploded around me; I needed a weapon, now. My knife was somewhere on the forest floor, all the way in Marlas for all the good it did me, and there was a person between me and my bow. I bumped back into the man who’d grabbed me and pain zinged up my arm—a blade. Twisting, I snatched the knife from where was tucked in his belt and, tossing it end-over-end to grab the blade, whipped it at the figure blocking my path. They dropped and I moved. 

Three steps had me back at the tree where everything had started. My arrows had fallen to the ground, but no one had stepped or fallen on them, thank the Goddess, and my bow still hung where I’d put it. Three arrows, three more enemies. 

Except, there was a fourth person moving in the fray, the one who’d stabbed my captor: Nesson. He was fast, faster than I’d expected, and both hands held glints of steel. I nocked an arrow.

“On your left!” I yelled, gratified when Nesson slid neatly out of my sightline and left me a clear shot. 

My arrow sailed true and the woman fell back. 

In the time it took me to knock another arrow, Nesson dispatched the second and obligingly dropped to the ground so I could take the last shot. I missed by a hair, drew again, and I didn’t miss the second time.

The forest was very quiet. Well, it was quiet until the hobbled man at my feet grabbed at my ankle  _ again _ and I yelped before kicking out. There was a crunch of some sort, probably his nose, and I skipped back, almost running into Nesson. His hand caught me between the shoulder blades before I could, and then he stepped past, not saying a word.

Still not speaking, Nesson raised one of his daggers and sank it into the man’s abdomen. Slowly. He flinched, but otherwise didn’t react. I was suddenly very glad I couldn’t see Nesson’s face because when he did speak, it was cold, impassive, and horrifyingly calm.

“We,” he said, standing and removing his blade, “are going to have a talk.”

He spoke precisely, the simple Akielon words sounding sharp and Veretian in his suddenly heavy accent. It was like he’d stopped trying to sound correct. His boot pressed down on the man’s open wound. When he spoke again, it was a demand—for what, I didn’t know. 

No response and the boot pressed harder. 

Nesson repeated himself, voice harsh in the midnight quiet.

The mercenary—for I assumed that’s what he was—let out a hoarse yell, then made an odd movement with his mouth. His jaw clenched down on something and, before either of us could do anything, he went rigid before seeming to lose all the bones in his body at once. 

Nesson released a string of curses too fast for me to understand and dropped down to his knees again, forcing the man’s mouth open. The toe of his boot sank into the stab wound, but the mercenary didn’t even blink.

“Poison.” Nesson spat, rising. He had bloodstains on his knees. “Can you track? There are more captives, I’m sure of it. We need to find them.”

I nodded. Without explaining, I grabbed a nearby branch and used the bloody knife to slice a strip off of the mercenary’s cloak. A vial of torch oil and a piece of flint from my belt pouch gave us a light.

“I can’t track without the light. Think there are any guards at their camp?”

Nesson was already looking around the remains of the scrap. “Doubtful. Traffickers don’t normally keep more than five people. We should be fine.”

The traffickers, whatever that meant, hadn’t bothered to cover their tracks, so we found their campsite within the hour. A campfire had been left smoldering and there was a covered wagon sitting nearby with a horse still in tack, but the main point of the camp was clear. 

In the middle of the clearing were seven children, all younger than me, all bound together on a long rope by the wrists. 

They flinched away from the light of my torch. I looked to Nesson, expecting to see the same shock and horror that was stirring up nausea in the pit of my stomach, but I didn’t. It was that same look from the inn staircase—disgusted, resigned, jaded—but so much worse.

“Come on,” he said, voice flat and dull, “Help me with this.” And I did.

Together, we got them all cut free. Nesson sent me back to our camp to collect all of our things, and when I returned the fire was burning high and bright. All of the children were sitting as close as possible without getting burned—the moon was sinking in the sky and all of the day’s heat had been leached from the air. As soon as I dropped my bundles, Nesson pulled me over to the wagon.

“Help me take down the cover. We’ll take them to Ravenel, I know the lord and it’s half a day’s travel with the wagon.”

I didn’t say anything; there wasn’t anything to say. We took down the wagon’s cover in minutes and were on our way before sunrise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look, action! Drama! Plot! Apparently Damen and Laurent's empire isn't exactly the idylic scene we might have wished for. Also, I! Love! Writing! Fight scenes!
> 
> Keep up with this and the rest of my adventures in Capri hell over at @pointsofhonor on tumblr!


	4. Chapter 4

I spent the trip in the back of the wagon while Nesson drove. Sunlight and food from my pack brought some light to the children’s’ eyes and I managed to coax names from each of them. At length, after many stories and showing them my most secret treasure, I learned a little more about them. 

Cassian and Leon were siblings, snatched from their parents’ farmstead. They couldn’t remember what their hometown was called. Petra had gotten lost on her way home herding the goats by herself. Evri, Osanne, and Celsus had all been taken after the traffickers killed the older children watching out for them. Little Theodoros had been in the wagon for weeks and could barely manage to tell me even that.

Mid-morning came and I crawled up to the front to ask Nesson where we were. He gave a terse answer of, “Close,” and I moved quickly back to my seat. Theodoros climbed into my lap. My head hurt.

**

Petra, the oldest, was the one to ask what had happened to their captors. Before I could explain my mind drew up short. Until now, the fight in the woods had been an abstract cloud, tucked away in my memories—something like a training exercise, or a childhood memory. There but not detailed; an experience rather than a thought. No longer. Each moment of the fight began to play in my head, sequence by sequence. 

The memories were viceral, lifelike, almost like experiencing them again. Huge hands in an iron grip around my ankles. Air leaking from too-tight lungs. Arrows whistling through the air. Ice-cold steel flying from my fingertips.

Though my knife victim had been too far away, I’d heard Nesson’s first kill with horrible clarity. It must have been a bit like that; breath punched out of them in a cut-off grunt. My throw had been precise in that instinctive way well-practiced actions are. I’d been that precise before, perched in a tree when rival clans raided our camp, but I hadn’t been the only one. Any arrow could have been mine, but then again, maybe none of them were.

Even though I hadn’t seen it, I was seeing it now—like I’d seen the man die from poison. Wide eyes staring down at a knife, an arrow. A body going stiff with shock and pain before collapsing. Life leaving in a terrible wheezing groan…

My stomach lurched and I felt my skin go clammy with sweat. I wanted to vomit. I wouldn’t, though, not with seven pairs of eyes on me, huge and watching. Keeping a careful hold on my voice, I looked Petra in the eye and said,

“They’re gone. Nesson and I took care of them and they’ll never take anyone again. I promise.”

Her nod of acknowledgement was more solemn than it had any right to be.

**

The roads couldn’t have been this rough before, when Nesson and I were walking. I would have noticed, surely. Every two minutes we seemed to hit a deep, bone-jarring rut, and I had to bite back a wince at each one. Maybe it was the lack of sleep. 

The sun, barely past noon, was brighter than I expected from a Veretian autumn, but all of us in the wagon were nodding off. I’d just begun to drift, two of the children slumped against me, when we lurched to a stop. I opened my eyes and blinked rapidly; something was blocking out the sun and I couldn’t see. 

Carefully extricating myself from the pile of napping children, I clambered forward again and stared up at the huge gate before us. I’d never seen a building that big—never realized buildings  _ could _ be that big. There were men patrolling far above us, only their heads visible above the battlements. I was so distracted watching the light glinting off steel helmets that I jumped when a voice hailed from just in front of us: a guard house.

“Ho! What business do you have with the lord of Ravenel?”

“Stay here,” Nesson ordered, then jumped down from the wagon. 

The conversation that followed was muffled, with Nesson facing away and the guard speaking through a thick wooden door, and I didn’t catch much of it. I did see Nesson reach into his bag and remove something, showing it to the guard. He had to dig for it, as if the item was long buried—as if he hadn’t retrieved it in a while. 

I didn’t see whatever the token was, but the guard did and it apparently convinced him of our purpose. Nesson was back on the wagon and the gate was opening. It creaked, the loud shriek of wood on steel, then the deafening clanking of the metal gate behind lifting, spikes disappearing into the wall.

Cobblestones juttered under the wagon wheels as we rolled through the gate, the horse’s hooves clopping on stone. Inside the walls the keep was busy. People milled about carrying bundles or pushing carts, only a few glancing at the gate to see. Across the courtyard a ruckus was being raised; three men striding from a door in the wall, all talking loudly. Their steps were loud with the clink of metal-on-metal and their armor was draped in forest green tabards emblazoned with a white sigil. 

Following the gleaming of bright spurs and shoulder plates, I watched them hurry into the walkway before splitting off three different directions. One turned his back to me and I saw— 

I saw the lion and starburst of  _ my _ token. 

My head spun, dizzy with overwhelmed confusion. If the lord of this castle was my father—but no, that couldn’t be. The lord of a Veretian fort wouldn’t be Akielon, would he? And Nesson had sworn to get me to my father safely,  _ and _ he knew this lord. Surely he wouldn’t have kept such a secret if he’d known. He’d acted as though my father was in Marlas, just as I’d been told, but—

“—sha. Tasha, are you listening?”

I shook my head, trying to clear it. Nesson had used my name, that was odd. Was he nervous? There was certainly a lot of tension in his voice.

“Yes, sorry. What?”

“I said,” he snapped, “that this is the home of Lord Berenger and his husband, Lord Ancel. Lord Berenger is an old friend and I’m bringing this issue,” he waved abstractly behind us, “to his attention personally.

“When we’re presented, you stay quiet and you pay attention. Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to. Eventually you’ll be equal in rank to lords like these, but for now it’s best you stay as invisible as possible. Is that clear?”

I nodded. That had been a lot of information and I tried to pull other answers from it. A friend of Nesson’s—that meant Lord Berenger was probably a Veretian lord he’d met in Arles. Most likely not my father, then. And Ancel didn’t sound like a terribly Akielon name. Not a viable candidate either. If they weren’t my parents, though, who had—

“Come on.”

Nesson was on the ground. He’d drawn our horse to a stop and leapt from the seat and was now tapping a foot impatiently, waiting for me.

“What about the children?” I asked as I slid from the high perch and hit the ground, wobbling slightly. I’d been sitting for too long, apparently.

“The steward is attending to them,” he replied, already striding towards large double doors. I followed, trying not to gape too openly.

The doors opened into a huge room. The stone walls had windows in one side, a long table set against it. Fire burned in a hearth on the opposite side and in the back was a dais set with two large chairs of dark wood. Also on the dais stood a man, his pose languid and radiating boredom from all the way across the room, his red hair gleaming in the light from the windows. The yellow light caught on colorful fabrics, the likes of which I’d only ever seen in the cloth merchant’s wares. 

Next to me, Nesson stiffened, but walked forward almost before I’d noticed the twitch. A step behind and slightly hidden by his cloak, I followed.

Three feet before the dais, Nesson stopped and bowed. I copied him, trying not to think about the clench I saw in his jaw. He was friends with this man? That seemed like a bit of a stretch. When we both rose, the man in question leveled us with a disdainful gaze.

“Lord Ancel.” Nesson addressed him politely, ice cold in his Veretian formality. Ah. Not Berenger, then.

“Nesson,” Lord Ancel returned, just as icy. “I had no idea you were still alive, let alone in this half of the empire.”

The irritated breath Nesson let out hinted that Ancel was lying, that Nesson had probably been in contact with the lord of the fort at some point and Ancel was just too petty to acknowledge it.

“I’ve come to report something of great importance to Lord Berenger. Where is he?”

“Out. Consulting with the horsemaster about the season’s foaling, won’t be back until evening.” Lord Ancel’s eyes flickered to me, only for a second, before settling back on Nesson. “Your choice in companions is…disturbing, if unsurprising.”

This time the flinch was obvious and I took a cautious step back. These two had the air of territorial mountain lionesses, circling and snarling. I wanted to be well away when one of them sprang.

“Careful, my lord,” Nesson said, a frisson of danger under his words, “I’m not so easily bought that your husband could keep me from ruining you next time you return to court. Silver tongues hold many ears.”

I half-expected a hiss to come from Ancel’s mouth when he opened it next, but what actually emerged was silk and poison. 

“No? I’m sure I saw a few sapphires in the treasury. Perhaps those will turn your head.”

Nesson’s step forward was sudden, jerky and violent. I’d never seen him lose control like this, not even during our fight in the woods. It was unnerving and I started to feel very alone in the cavernous hall. 

I heard him draw breath to retort—he’d checked himself after one step but was still vibrating with rage—when a door off the the side of the dais opened and another man entered the hall. The newcomer strode quickly across the room and up onto the dais, taking an obviously comfortable place next to Ancel’s side. I assumed  _ this _ was Lord Berenger. 

Next to his colorful husband, Lord Berenger looked like a sparrow in comparison. A bit taller, older than both Nesson and Ancel, he was still plain and covered in dust from the road. Regardless, the weight of his presence was enough to silence the room. With the ease of one used to such tension in his hall, the Lord of Ravenel reached out and took his husband’s arm before turning to us.

“Nesson, this is a pleasant surprise, though I suspect the reason for your visit is not. Captain Guymar sent a rider, said your concern was urgent.”

The storm clouds I’d felt gathering dissipated in a rush. Nesson fell back into a more relaxed posture—not lazy, but more appropriate for talking to a familiar face. I felt my own tension start to bleed out, leaving behind an ache in my shoulders.

“It is, my lord. Not a day ago, we encountered a band of traffickers who were far too well-armed to be the usual slaver scum. I’m afraid their presence is connected to the concerns I related in my last letter.”

Berenger’s brow furrowed. “That is serious. We shall need to speak on this further.” His gaze moved, settled on me. “Who is this? Another apprentice?”

“Of a sort. I was charged to escort her to Marlas and tutor her along the way. With practice, she might make a decent silvertongue, if it was her inclination.”

Nesson gestured for me to come forward. Swallowing hard, I did and bowed once more.

“It’s an honor to meet you Lord Berenger, Lord Ancel. I am Tasha, of the Ironwood Spears clan.” The Veretian came out smoothly enough, though I could feel a shaking under the words. I rose to see Lord Berenger, at least, smiling slightly.

“Well met, Tasha. You’re a horsewoman, yes?” At my nod, he continued, “You might enjoy a look about my stables. Ravenel’s breeding program is one of the best in the empire. I must speak to Nesson in private, but I would gladly have someone show you around.”

I nodded again, something cheerful blossoming in my chest and across my face. I’d spent the past week carefully suppressing thoughts of horses as anything other than beasts of burden. Anything further and I would have had to remember my own mare, Geriel, who I’d been forced to leave behind. 

I’d grown up with her, broken her, learned to ride on her; leaving her behind was the worst thing I’d ever done. As painful as her memory was, though, I’d missed the easy companionship I’d always been able to cultivate with horses. Also, horses didn’t care what language I spoke.

“Thank you, my lord. That would be…” The Veretian word escaped me. I searched frantically for it before coming up with, “wonderful.”

“It’s settled then.” Berenger’s warm gaze turned softer when it shifted to his husband. “Ancel, would you join us? I’ll call for tea.”

Delicately, Ancel extracted himself from his husband with a look that promised a conversation hidden beneath demure eyelashes.

“No, my lord. I have other things to attend to at present, with so many more guests added to our halls. I’ll see you at dinner.” And he swept out yet another side door, this one on the opposite side of the dais.

Berenger watched him go with sigh before returning his attention to me and Nesson. At his gesture, we followed him to the door he’d entered from and through it. A guard waited on the other side and Berenger addressed her.

“Allena, Nesson and I will be in my study. Would you please escort this lady to the stables before attending to us?”

The guard bowed and turned to me, smiling a bit. “If you would follow me?”

Carefully returning the smile, I nodded and did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enter familiar faces two and three! Poor Berenger really has his hands full, but somehow I don't think he minds. Also this chapter and the next were absolutely glorious to write. So much fun~
> 
> Keep up with our Bang fic and the rest of my Capri adventures over at @pointsofhonor on tumblr!


	5. Chapter 5

The stables Allena led me to were cool, dark, and blessedly quiet after the chaotic noise of the castle and courtyard. She bid me farewell after giving a quick description of the building’s layout and then I was alone.

Everything about the place was unfamiliar, and yet felt like home. We’d never kept our horses in buildings, obviously, but the smell of animals at rest was hard to mistake. Rough wood walls kept all the sounds in—I could hear the soft whuffles and nickering of the stall occupants all the way down the corridor. 

I walked as quietly as I could, footsteps muffled by straw scattered across the packed earth, and tried to take it all in. The Veretian tack on the walls was different than the twined rope halters I’d always used to direct my mount. The metal pieces, spurs and bits and buckles, made it clear that Veretians trained their horses very differently than we did in the clans.

A few paces ahead, a beautiful black head arched over a stall gate. The horse’s dark eyes locked on me as I approached and I felt my mouth curl upward, my hand reaching, palm-out for him to sniff. Nostrils flared, he jerked back as if offended. 

I stiffened. That was...not the normal reaction I got from horses. Even the work animals pulling Charls’ wagon and the one Nesson I had commandeered had been friendly enough after a few minutes. I’d never had a horse shy away in fear from me like that.

I turned my head to look behind me, the way I’d come. Nothing. Was it the blood on my clothes, maybe? But no, this horse was war stock, he was too big and well-built to be otherwise. Blood would be something he’d been trained not to fear by now. 

Carefully, I moved closer. He snorted and pranced back, retreating from the gate he’d been so interested in looking over. I stopped again. There was nothing about me a warhorse should fear, so what was the matter?

Footsteps sounded from deeper in the stables. Not loud, but boots made noise on dirt no matter how carefully you walked. I turned to see a boy my age approaching, looking between me and the horse, curious. I stepped back quickly.

“I didn’t do anything, I swear,” I said, heart in my throat. “He’s just…jumpy.”

The boy shook his head, making a face. He entered the light from a nearby window and I realized Akielon might have been more appropriate, if I knew it. He had skin nearly as dark as mine and black curly hair. His tunic and pants were much less tailored than anything I’d seen Veretian men wear so far and the sword at his side wasn’t like any I’d seen in Vere.

“Sorry, I didn’t—” I stammered, using up most of the Akielon I knew, but he waved me off and approached the stall gate.

Immediately the horse inside calmed and came forward once more, nosing into the extended touch and letting out a contented breath. Where I would have said something to calm it, the boy instead leaned his forehead against the horse’s and kept it there. He was very tall to be able to reach, and his build matched the horse’s in terms of visible strength. 

I didn’t want to interrupt; I felt like an intruder. I made to step away, to leave, but he raised a hand in an easily-understood signal to wait. With one more pat to his horse’s neck—it had to be his, with that kind of bond—he turned and reached into a pocket, pulling out a palm-sized slab of wood.

Curious, I watched as he unfolded it to reveal another piece of wood connected by a hinge. A stick fell from between the pieces and he caught it deftly, using it to scratch something on whatever was hidden between the folded slabs. When he’d finished, he turned the contraption to face me and I saw what it was: a wax tablet protected by the folded wood that he’d written words on. Words I couldn’t read. I felt a flush crawl up the back of my neck.

“I’m sorry, I can’t— I don’t know how to read.”

He shrugged but one eyebrow was raised, as if he was definitely surprised but not disappointed. Folding the device away, he pointed to himself and covered his mouth with the other. Obvious enough.

“But you can still hear?”

He nodded, but his next sign was harder to understand. He pointed to himself, then placed his hand against his heart, shaped like a circle, before closing his fist while leaving the last finger up and bringing it across his waist, over the sword belt. I could feel my head tilting to the side in confusion. Rolling his eyes, he repeated the point and gesture more emphatically. I decided to take a guess.

“Your name?” I hazarded, repeating the gesture, and he grinned. Then he pointed to me, eyebrows raised in a question of his own. “My name’s Tasha. Is that your horse?”

The horse in question was leaning over the stall gate again, head hooked over the boy’s shoulder and searching for treats in his tunic. He laughed and nodded, giving the horse a playful shove away. He was just bringing his hands up to say something else, but a yell came from the stable door.

“Orion! What the  _ fuck _ did I say about you running off without a guard!”

The boy, Orion, winced and his hands started moving very quickly as the yelling man stalked towards us.

“No, I don’t care that you felt stifled or that you think the castle is safe enough. Lord Berenger has ordered a lockdown on the keep and your uncle will have my head if something happens to you. Stop giving us the damned slip!”

His voice was loud enough to make my head ring and I had to fight the urge to bring my hands up to cover my ears. Up close, I saw the man was one of the green guards I’d seen earlier. The white sigil blazed where he’d stopped in the window’s light. 

When I turned my head to see how Orion was responding to the tirade, the man seemed to finally notice my presence.

“Shit. Boy, you know better than to be tumbling some girl in a Veretian border fort—or at all.”

We both exploded into interjections at the same time, Orion with frantic hand waving and signs, me with a cry of, “What?” 

It was too dark to tell, but I suspected Orion’s face was burning as red as my own. The guard scrutinized our panicked flailing for a second, then burst out laughing. 

“Or not. Sorry to assume, young lady.  _ He _ ,” a sharp look was shot at Orion, “should know better than to let assumptions happen in the first place, though.”

Orion’s response looked to be something irritated and probably vulgar about Veretian customs and escorts. I snickered, recognizing a few very inappropriate gestures that the caravan guards had used. The guard sighed and seemed to give up his fight to impress sense into my new friend. He went to speak, but Orion stopped him, pointed to me, and signed something. It must have been an introduction because the man gave a playful bow.

“Well met, Tasha. I’m Lazar, captain of Lord Orion’s guard and your escort from now until dinner. Which, incidentally, is about to start.”

With a sigh, Orion nodded and gave his horse one last pat before heading towards the door Lazar had entered through, obviously expecting us to follow. I did, unwilling to get left behind and lost, and Lazar trailed after. 

Evening light streamed into the courtyard still, burnishing everything in orange, glinting brightly on all the little bits of exposed metal around. Orion seemed familiar with the castle layout, leading us unerringly into a nondescript door and through several twisting hallways before we entered a large dining room. Inside, there was one huge table with many seats set around it. The lords of the castle were not yet present but their places at the head of the table were obvious.

Everything was chaotic with servants rushing about, people talking over one another, scents of different foods wafting through the air. Lazar and Orion made straight for chairs on the right side. They were already occupied by five other green-clad guards. How long had they been staying here, I wondered, to be so familiar with the seating arrangement? 

I was two steps behind them, figuring to sit at the end of the line of soldiers, when a hand closed on my upper arm and shot pain all through my body. I cried out and jerked away. Nesson stood next to me, giving me an odd look.

“Jumpy, aren’t you? Come on, we’ve been assigned seats.”

He made to steer me through the room but I dodged away clumsily. I nearly ran into a servant, stumbling out an apology before righting myself. Nesson had given up trying to grab me and was just walking farther up the table—so many people—and expecting me to follow.

“Wait,” I said, hurrying behind him. “Can’t I—” I gestured to Orion and his guard, “Why don’t I just—”

Nesson ignored all of my questions until we reached our seats, near the head of the table on the left. My stomach turned; I wasn’t nearly ready to be dining at a lord’s table, not yet. Surely Lord Berenger hadn’t invited Nesson’s raggedy tag-along to dine with him as well. I made one more plea.

“Nesson, wouldn’t it be better for me to be sitting farther down?”

In response, he pulled out a chair in pointed silence. That was that, then. 

Suddenly very tired, I sat where I was bid and Nesson joined me. We were nearer to the head head of the table than anyone except Orion, who sat across with his guards. The room was so full of chatter I could barely hear myself think, so I didn’t feel it was a problem to lean over to Nesson and say,

“Who’s that across from us? Why wouldn’t you let me sit with the guards?”

Nesson’s response was sharp. “When a lord tells you to sit somewhere, you do it. And yes, you were included in the invitation.” 

He looked across the table then, eyes flitting down the line. He drew breath to respond, then his gaze fell on Captain Lazar—or was it Orion seated beside?—and he froze. Not a flinch like in the great hall, not like anything I’d seen him do. He reminded me of a hare caught in the light of a torch, eyes wide and unable to move in the moment before fleeing.

Unlike a hare, Nesson did not bolt. He exhaled sharply before turning to me and saying, cooly, “That’s Lord Orion, nephew to his Exalted Majesty, King Damianos.”

“And that’s his personal guard?”

“Not exactly,” he scoffed, “That’s a division of the Prince’s Guard. Lord Orion was integrated into the royal household when he was eleven. A ridiculous decision. The capital was already in an uproar about the bastard Crown Prince being presented five years before. Accepting a traitor’s bastard on top of it?” 

Nesson shook his head dismissively. “Even the Akielons were upset.”

Many things seemed to fall into place at once, but somehow I couldn’t see the full picture. Possibilities and conjectures and conclusions appeared in my mind’s eye, but they were like impossibly bright flashes of light; they blurred more than they illuminated. 

Prince’s Guard; white starbursts and lions on emerald green; the royal family; information spinning around my head, not stopping long enough to make sense. My father’s crest on Orion’s guard; the Crown Prince being presented nearly ten years ago, where did that—Goddess but I was so dizzy—why was this important, again? 

There were voices, one in my ear, many from far in front. I couldn’t make sense of them. My head was full of rushing wind. A hand placed on my shoulder was fire through my whole body; I bit down on my tongue to keep from screaming. I’d known blood tasted like iron since I was very small. Why was it so surprising now?

There was movement, I could see it, but the world was blurry. Blurry, and then there were black spots blossoming in the air around me. They ate up the familiar: Nesson’s face, the captain’s emerald tabard, stone walls around us. The spinning behind my eyes was stirring up nausea in my guts and, as I felt the world fall out from under me, I hoped very fervently I wouldn’t actually vomit at the dinner table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaannnnndddd that's it for today's posting! You all can sit tight on that ending for 24 hours, right?
> 
> Keep up with this Bang adventure and the rest of my Capri life at @pointsofhonor on tumblr!


	6. Chapter 6

It hurt to move. I was in the softest bed I’d ever known, surrounded by sheets more fine than any inn’s, if not as soft as the furs at home, and the slightest twitch was agony. Air burned in my throat; I was inhaling embers with every breath. I wanted to yell, to curl away from it all, to cry until my mother heard and came to find me. It hurt too much to even do that.

A hand of fire pushed me upright; I would have screamed if my throat hadn’t closed off. Ice cold glass pressed against my mouth. I parted my lips, desperate for something that didn’t burn, but the freezing liquid against the fire inside me was just as bad. I tried to cough, but someone placed a hand over my mouth, forcing me to swallow. 

An unmelting chunk of river ice sank through my chest; too much, it was too much and the river iced over with my head beneath, the water cold and dark and Goddess-blessed.

**

It was dark when I woke. I couldn’t see. I was wrapped in sweat-soaked sheets tangled too tight around me and pain flashed whenever I so much as brushed my skin against them. My head was somewhat clearer, though, and I could trace all of my misery to one location—high on my left arm. 

Something about that location seemed familiar. I’d cut it, hadn’t I? Yes, in the fight in the woods. I’d cut my arm then grabbed the blade that’d bled me to throw it. Curious, I tried to raise my hand, wanting to see the fingers that I’d grasped the steel with. My arm didn’t move.

I tried again, put a little more effort in. It moved that time, fire screaming up my nerves at every touch of linen on my skin, but exhaustion stopped the gesture before I so much as saw my fingers. Once more, and the hand made it all the way into my line of sight. Except it was dark. Too dark?

“There  _ is _ a poison stain there, since you can’t see,” said a voice from somewhere. I recognized it. 

“You’re lucky the cut was so small. The blindness might have been permanent, otherwise. As is, you’ll be able to see fine by tomorrow.”

Nesson. That’s who it was. I couldn’t see him, obviously, but I could imagine his terrible sickbed manner. He was probably reading a book from Lord Berenger’s library, not even looking at me. I tried to respond, but all that came out was a rasping croak of a sound. Nesson sighed.

“You shouldn’t be talking. The physician will throw me out if she thinks I’m disturbing your rest.”

A clanking and clattering near my head and there was cold metal against my mouth.

“Drink.”

I did. The water was cool and eased the ache in my throat, though it hurt to swallow—an odd sensation. When the cup was taken away, I decided to try again. This time, I at least managed words.

“I thought you weren’t going to speak Vaskian anymore.”

“No, the agreement was that  _ you _ weren’t going to speak it. Which you have now done. Why do you think I told you not to talk?”

The harsh words didn’t have any bite behind them, but I wanted to be sure. I wanted to check that his face wasn’t twisted in that unpleasant way it sometimes did. But I couldn’t. I could feel myself blinking, my head turning, but couldn’t see either result. The darkness started to press in on me, like a weight on my chest. It was hard to breathe. 

“You’re sure I’ll be able to see again?” My voice sounded small, even to my own ears.

“I’m sure.” 

Rustling and scuffling sounds of someone sitting in a chair, then, “Is there anything I can say that will get you to shut up and go back to sleep? You shouldn’t be awake at all.”

He was right and I knew it. I could already feel warm, grey fog creeping in the edges of my consciousness; I was so tired. But there was a question I’d been wanting to ask and I got the detached feeling I might actually get an answer if I tried right now.

“You and Lord Ancel fought. Is it because you knew each other before? When you were in Arles?”

Nesson didn’t say anything for a long time. There must have been a fire somewhere in the room; I heard the snap of burning wood in the silence. I clamped my throat down on a yawn. Finally, he took a deep breath.

“If you remember this later, not a word of it to anyone else.”

I nodded, then regretted it immediately. My neck creaked and ached in protest.

“Alright. Before the Unification, I was a pet at the court in Arles. Ancel was as well.

“Arles was a dangerous place back then, for pets especially. One mistake, one wrong look and you could lose your patron—you could be out on the streets within the day, or worse. We were players in the political game as much as any of the nobles, garnering support, trading information, seducing the right people.

“Ancel and I—” He stopped, searching for words before continuing, “ —were on opposite sides of the biggest play of all, or at least it seemed that way. I didn’t exactly have the option of being otherwise. 

“I’m friends with Berenger because he helped me get out when it mattered most, but Ancel has no love for me. We spent too long trying to sabotage each other and I suspect he still views me as a threat. Ridiculous as that may be.”

I wanted to respond, say something, ask more questions, but sleep was well upon me and I couldn’t manage anything before being dragged under once more.

**

It was a commotion that woke me next. From the door I could hear voices, not loud, but frantic in their tone and speed. Fuzzy-headed, I couldn’t pull the Veretian words apart from one another. When I blinked my eyes open, there was light. The light didn’t resolve itself into anything, but it was better than the pitch-black of my last attempt.

Rubbing my eyes to try and clear the blur from my vision—it didn’t work—I sat up, wincing at the aches in my body. To my right there was a large block of light with two people silhouetted in it. As I squinted, another figure came striding into the frame with yet another, slightly shorter one at his heels. My eyes proving useless, I closed them and focused on listening harder.

The words were still blurring into each other, but I could pick out the voices: Nesson, terse and sharp; Lord Berenger, urgent with worry; Captain Lazar and his crass accent. I only heard three. Maybe the fourth figure had been Orion? 

Speaking of, I heard footsteps come nearer, even though the conversation hadn’t ceased. When I opened my eyes to confirm, the world had come into sharper focus to reveal that my assumption had been correct, but for the small bundle carried in Orion’s arms. No, not a bundle, a child clinging to his neck.

Another set of rapid blinks and swimming colors came together to form Orion sitting in a chair next to my bed with little Theodoros on his lap. Theodoros was looking at Orion’s moving hands intently, then he turned to me with a smile.

“‘Rion asked me to help him talk to you.” That was more words than I’d gotten out of him through an entire day’s wagon ride; they were said around a thumb in his mouth.

“You understand his hands?”

A nod. “Mm-hm. My  _ pater _ couldn’t talk after the war, so he did that instead.”

There was another brief pause as Orion said something else, then Theo relayed, “I’m supposed to tell you that me and the other kids are fine and that you’ve been asleep for two days.” 

He stopped, then with words that were obviously his own, “You’ve got a big fish sting on your arm. Does it hurt? Is that why you slept?”

I looked at my left arm; it’d been throbbing in pain this whole time. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it wasn’t what I found. There was a tiny cut high on my upper arm that was almost hidden in a swelled lump of bruising veined with unnatural purple. Well then.

“Yes, it does hurt, but it’s not from a fish. It’s from a knife.”

Theo shook his head as if I didn’t know anything. “Knives don’t do that. Anyway—” a pause to translate, “—’Rion wants to know if you’re really going to the capital like the grumpy one said. ‘Cause if you are, him and the loud captain are leaving to go back right now.” 

Both Orion and Theo glanced over at the arguing men. “Maybe.”

My muddled thoughts started to draw together. The capital, Marlas, that I was supposed to get to before the equinox festival—how long had I been asleep? Two days? Plus the detour to Ravenel? We were going to be late. Unless… 

Nesson was going to hate this idea.

Summoning up every bit of energy I had—not a lot—I tossed off the blankets and swung my legs off the bed. Theo complained as he was unceremoniously removed from Orion’s lap but I was on my feet and a few steps across the room before Orion caught up to me, face clearly asking me what in the three hells I thought I was doing. I ignored him and continued towards the person I was almost sure was Lazar; the world had just about un-blurred but they were still far away.

Without any heed to the conversation, I addressed the tallest member of their group. 

“Captain, please let us come with you to Marlas.”

Silence. Then Nesson said flatly,

“No. You’re too ill to travel and they’re leaving in literal minutes.”

“Yes. We’re three days behind and I’m perfectly well enough to ride a horse.”

“And where do you propose we get horses?” Nesson snapped, more like a parent to a petulant child than a traveling companion. 

I bristled, but before I could retort, Lord Berenger said,

“I have a couple of horses that need to be brought to my vendor in Marlas. I would trust you to get them there safely, Nesson.”

I felt a smirk twist my mouth when Nesson shot a look at Berenger. “That’s not the point—”

“The point,” I interrupted, “is to reach Marlas before the equinox festivals begin, and traveling with Lord Orion and his men is the fastest and safest way.”

We glared at each other. I could feel dizziness swirling behind my eyes but I kept upright. Nesson was stubborn, but I was worse. 

In the end, neither of us broke the deadlock—Lazar did.

“Well, I don’t mind the two of you riding with us, as long as we’re gone by midday. The lady should stay close to one of us hale and hearty people, though, ‘cause it looks like she’ll fall out of the saddle on a stiff breeze.”

He wasn’t wrong, but I ignored the ribbing in favor of keeping my attention on the party that still needed convincing. I stared. Nesson glared back. I stared harder, and he finally sighed and said,

“Well then, I guess I’d better go grab my things.” 

Then he turned on his heel and walked out into the hall. Vindicated, I made to follow, but was stopped by a touch at my elbow. Orion stood there, holding out my coin purse with a quirked eyebrow. They must have taken it off me when I collapsed. I attempted a bow in thanks, swayed dizzily and decided not to try it again.

“Thank you, my lord. I suppose we’ll be seeing a lot of each other from now on.”

He pulled a face and signed his name with nothing before or after. I grinned.

“Orion, then.” And I made my less-than-steady way off down the hall.     
  


**

The stables were louder than when I’d first visited. The day was in full swing and four of Orion’s guard were saddling up and preparing to leave. The rest, Lord Berenger had said, would be staying at Ravenel for the duration of their expected stay. The keep had been locked down after Nesson’s report on the band of thugs we’d fought, and the remainder of the Prince’s Guard was staying to help with the search for any others. I wasn’t quite sure what a band of kidnappers had done to scare Nesson and the lord of the fort so badly, but it probably had something to do with the poisoned knife.

Behind me, Nesson cleared his throat. I turned from the saddlebag I’d just finished packing and found him standing behind me with a hand outstretched.

“Here.”

A glass vial was pressed into my hand, warm from being in a hand or a pocket. I looked at it, curious. The clear liquid inside sloshed innocuously.

“What is it?”

“Antidote for the poison. You should keep it close.”

His eyes were serious when they landed on my left arm pointedly. 

“But if I’m already cured, why do I need it?” Regardless, I pocketed the vial.

Nesson shook his head, moving to his own horse and methodically checking the tack: girth strap, buckles, saddleblanket, halter, bridle. Methodically, but shying a bit from the horse, as if unfamiliar or nervous.

“That’s no ordinary poison, rat. Some physicians think it’s actually alive, the way it behaves. Sometimes victims who survived suddenly collapse as if they’ve been poisoned again. Most people die within hours of a second exposure—even if it’s just a drop. Drinking that right away can sometimes save them.” 

He clamped down on the spill of words to give one last tug on a strap, then he returned his attention to me.

“We’re traveling with high-risk companions and I promised I’d see you  _ safely _ to Marlas. Keep it with you.”

And then he was mounted up and out of the stable yard. I watched him go, wondering what he’d meant by “high-risk companions”. I also wondered if he had a purple-veined scar somewhere, same as me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tada!
> 
> Find me on tumblr at @pointsofhonor!


	7. Chapter 7

It quickly became apparent that whatever I’d gained in speed and protection for this last leg of the journey, I’d lost in peaceable travel with Nesson by insisting we join Orion and his guard. As soon as we’d left the shadow of Ravenel, Nesson insisted on riding at the back of the group, scowling and side-eyeing our companions the entire time.

I didn’t complain, at first. My head and arm ached still from the poison, and staying upright on my horse took so much energy that I could barely keep up with Nesson’s considerately slow conversation. The saddle beneath me was shaped all wrong and I had to keep doubly vigilant with my direction of Lord Berenger’s horse; she was Veretian-broke and found cues in every other shift of my weight. It took most of my attention just to stay seated.

Ahead, noontime sun lit up the sigl on the guard’s uniforms. The pouch around my neck felt heavy enough to drag me off my horse headfirst, I was so tempted to take my token out and compare them. I didn’t need to. I’d looked at that crest every night for ten years—the emerald’s facets were worn smooth from constant touch. I knew they were the same. 

As I reached up to adjust the leather cord, I realized I hadn’t actually looked at the contents since showing them to Nesson. That gave me pause; enough that I unbalanced and almost landed on my face in the dirt. I found my center again, gave my poor, confused horse a pat on the neck, and thought about it. 

For almost as long as I could remember, I’d been  _ angry _ at the dark, retreating silhouette in my mind, but…  Admittedly, I’d been a bit preoccupied, but the most heated thought I’d directed at my father since leaving that tavern had been—well, it’d been a curse towards him about his absence forcing me to take up with irritating traveling companions. 

Desperate for something else to think about, I cast my eyes about for something other than green tabards; unfortunately, there wasn’t much else in sight. Seeing my fixation, Nesson gave a long-suffering sigh from my left and nudged his mount closer to mine.

“It’s best to just stay out of their way. Associating with our empire’s royalty traditionally ends badly.”

I turned my head, fixed him with an intent stare. His eyebrows went up in response. I considered him, remembering the widening of his eyes when he saw my token, his utter disdain of the imperial court, the shock when he’d recognized Orion. 

_ A division of the Prince’s Guard,  _ he’d said. I knew what that meant. I’d known even through the haze of poison and I knew it now. And so did he.

“Then why did you stay? Why not just let me travel to Marlas with them and go back to your dual life of silvertongue and spy?”

Nesson’s mouth twisted. 

“Because, unlike their Imperial Majesties, I don’t promise to protect a child and then leave them to the wolves when it’s most convenient for me. Even if that means I have to travel out of my way in the company of a legitimized, whore-son bastard and his borrowed attack dogs.”

I barely registered my response before it hit the air. Between ourselves, Nesson and I hadn’t exactly been speaking with proper court vocabulary and the vulgar retort was queued and formed and out of my mouth before I could stop it.

“Then it’s a wonder your Veretian sensibilities managed to get you this far, as my mother went around fucking men, bearing bastards, even putting those bastards on thrones when it suited their brutish, barbarian, imperial father. Lord Orion is practically legitimate in comparison.”

I shifted my seat, weight farther forward in the saddle, and touched my heels to my horse’s sides. Her strides lengthened, then shifted to a slight bounce as we trotted closer to the guard troop. I called back over my shoulder,

“Feel free to leave; I think you can trust I’ll be protected with this company. I’ll see your payment is sent to Lord Berenger. You have my word, as much as a bastard’s word is worth, anyway.”

There was a burning in the back of my throat as I passed the first two guardsmen on my way up to the front of the line, the sensation crawling up behind my nose and eyes. I clenched my teeth over it. 

Orion quirked an eyebrow when I pulled up beside him, tight-faced, breathing like I’d just run the distance rather than rode. I could only spit, “ _ Veretians _ ,” in response, drawing a grimace from him and an indignant noise from Lazar just behind.

Orion kept his attention on me for a few moments—the feeling building behind my eyes was so strong I couldn’t even blush under the scrutiny—then he turned and signed something to Lazar. The captain spurred his horse forward and came abreast of us, between me and Orion. I raised my eyebrows in return and Orion signed something I didn’t understand.

“He wants to know if you’d like to learn his signs.” Lazar translated after giving Orion an exasperated look. 

Immediately, my exhausted brain recoiled from the thought of  _ another  _ language. Considering his heritage, I wondered if it wouldn’t be mostly Akielon but with gestures? But then again, anything to keep my mind off of the future and the less-than-warm reception I could expect to receive would be more than welcome. I nodded.

“Okay.” 

**

Orion’s particular brand of Sign was  _ not  _ merely Akielon in gestures, thank the Goddess. He even had hand signals for every sound in Veretian that Nesson had taught me, and those became my main method of communicating. Everything else was broad concepts that would have been words upon words if he’d said them aloud. It was a very efficient way to talk, but I was also glad I Lazar was there to translate. If not, it would have taken all day just for Orion to teach me how to say hello with sound-signs.

We stopped at midday to rest the horses, just long enough to see Nesson catch us up and deliberately set himself off to the side while we ate. Between bites of cheese and apples from the fort, Orion and I talked laboriously through signs. I kept my head bent over our conversation—Nesson was across the clearing and I could feel his stare burning into the side of my head.

_ “What’s between you two?”  _ Orion finally asked, carefully spelling out the words I didn’t know.

I flicked a look towards Nesson. He was still in hearing range, so I stood and made to mount up, as a few of the guard were also beginning to.

“I’ll tell you on the road.”

There was a fair amount of clatter and chaos as we moved out once more and, when we were organized once more, I found myself in front again but next to Orion this time. 

Lazar was watching us like a hawk from my other side, ostensibly to translate if need be, but I had the feeling he was keeping an eye out for any  _ untoward situations _ Orion might get himself into. I chafed under it. Couldn’t these nobles keep their noses out of everyone’s privacy and parentage for even a second?

Orion was giving me an expectant look. I sighed.

“Right after I crossed the Vaskian border, I chartered Nesson to escort me to Marlas. I have...family, there, with money enough to compensate him for the travel and the time he’s spent tutoring me.” 

A raised eyebrow here, and a sign that I’d learned earlier in the day. 

_ “Teaching?” _

“Yes,” I replied, “I didn’t speak Akielon or Veretian when I crossed the border. Part of our deal was that I’d be conversational in at least one by the time we got to the capital.”

There was a low whistle from my other side—Lazar had been eavesdropping, apparently. I turned to him.

“Color me impressed,” he said, shrugging. “It took me months to pick up Akielon, and my lover was pretty invested in teaching me.”

Orion signed something, too fast for me to catch, and Lazar flushed.

“There was a war going on! I was a bit distracted, and how was I supposed to know the prettiest man in Nikandros’ contingent was also a bilingual noble?”

His continued grumbling was drowned out by Orion’s laughter. The soldiers around us were snickering as well, apparently all in on the joke.

I could feel myself grinning, but must have looked confused enough that Orion signed slowly, with another, clumsier soldier translating,

“Lazar’s lover, Pallas, is captain of my cousin’s guard. He let Lazar think he didn’t speak Veretian for months before finally admitting that Lazar had been making a fool of himself for nothing. Pallas thinks it’s all great fun, of course.”

“Your cousin?”

“Yes, the Crown Prince,”

And then Orion carefully spelled out,

_ “S-H-A-D-E-L” _

**

_ “Halvik?” _

_ “Yes, Tasha?” _

_ “When are Mama and Shad coming back?” _

_ They had been gone for three days now, gone with the big man. The man’s eyes had been warm, I remembered, but sad.  _

_ A stone in my pocket was warm, but in a different way. It felt huge in my small, five-year-old fist. _

_ “They aren’t, little one. Shadel will be your father’s heir with your mother as his advisor. You will be a great rider of the clans—the best we’ve ever seen, I’m certain.” _

_ But I didn’t want that. I would rather have been stuck in the tents, a caregiver and changer of babies’ clothes with my brother a clan away, my mother out on a raid, than be a great woman of the clans.  _

_ I cried for a week, after that. _

**

Well. That settled the question once and for all, then.

Orion was still talking, hands moving faster now that Lazar was done sulking and translating again, but I was so distracted I barely heard anything.

My father was his Exalted Majesty, King Damianos of the New Artesian Empire. My brother was heir to an empire and my mother was more-than-likely some kind of Imperial Consort. And I— I was a runaway child of the clans who couldn’t read, write, or hold more than a basic conversation with courtly manners. 

I’d known, technically, since Ravenel, but this was absolute, irrefutable proof. Undeniable.

The world started to sway alarmingly. My arm throbbed and my head spun; I could feel my horse stutter with nerves under me. I heard the captain’s voice came from my left, alarmed, possibly saying my name.

Mindful of my injury, it was Orion’s hand that came out to steady me, firm pressure on my uninjured shoulder. The touch grounded me, somewhat—the dizziness began to subside and I pulled myself upright in the saddle again. Heat flushed my face, though, as I realized the whole troop was staring at me.

“Sorry,” I said, not looking up. “Still a bit off from the poison, I guess…”

Orion’s serious, concerned nod was bittersweet satisfaction. Finally, a traveling companion I could successfully lie to.

Deliberately, I didn’t look back. Nesson was obviously scared of the royal family— _ my family _ —and had some sort of complicated history with them— _ us _ . Bitterly, I wished he’d told me, made me fear them, made me  _ hate _ them. Then I could have run away with a clear conscience; I could have been his apprentice, like Berenger had assumed. 

I could have done it without being the coward wanting it made me, now that I knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kinda out of time to type notes, but I haven't yet begged for comments, so I should probably do that. Leave comments, tell me what you think!
> 
> My Capri tumblr is @pointsofhonor~


	8. Chapter 8

In the days that followed, our party was determinedly light-hearted, as if trying to stave away the hurried anxiety with willpower alone. Lazar was avoiding the main roads with a fervor so great I almost thought he was enjoying it—all this sneaking around. He and a few of the older soldiers in the group had the look of nostalgia in their eyes. I wondered if they’d all been on campaign together in this area before.

Not two days after leaving Ravenel, we’d slipped off the well-worn trade thoroughfare and onto more covered routes through the forest. The tree cover thinned the closer we got to old Akielon territory, but it was still enough to hide a small party of eight mounted people moving with tolerable stealth.

The captain and the rest of the guard were all laughter and open talk until Orion or I asked for more details about our swift and secret leavetaking from Ravenel. Then they went tight-lipped and stony. 

Before we left, while I was still asleep, Lord Berenger had apparently told Lazar there was reason to believe Orion was in danger at Ravenel—the captain relayed that and nothing else. The threat was real enough, with a string of murders through the nobility that supported the royal family making Lord Berenger and his husband obvious targets; what bothered me was how vague the perpetrator's identity was.

The most obvious reason behind his reluctance to speak was that Lazar didn’t actually know any more than we did. My gut, though, saw his slightly furtive glances at Orion, and occasionally back to Nesson, and it said the reason might be what he refused to glance at: me.

Orion had been touring the forts on what had been the Akielon-Veretian border, meaning to go as far as the Compass Border between the four countries before returning to Marlas. The lords and kyroi had been told to expect him, to teach him the ins and outs of controlling lands still stretching a cultural divide. It’d been on his uncle’s suggestion, he said—a show of his loyalty to the empire to offset the awkward circumstances of his birth. 

To turn back now would be hard to defend, Orion said with worry heavy in his face, unless there was a truly great danger. Lazar, who had been translating, gave my arm a significant look.

“That kind of poison a great enough danger for you? It’s enough to get you off the hook with the kings, so don’t worry about that.”

So the thugs Nesson and I had routed  _ were _ a set of suspects. Reminded of Nesson’s tendency to reveal information accidentally, only to clam up once it was pointed out, I kept my mouth shut. I also kept a closer watch on Lazar after that.

**

Cowardly though it was, I did everything in my power to steer Orion away from discussing family in the days that followed. I’d explained that my own family situation was complicated, not elaborated further, and he caught on quickly; I wondered what he thought my motives were. Regardless, he didn’t mention anyone by name if he could help it. 

Some stories, I could tell, were about his antics with Shadel around the palace, unless there was another boy his age and rank to make mischief with every other day. Not likely, but easy enough to pretend. And plenty of others centered around his adventures in horsemanship with a man he referred to so familiarly—only as Laurent—I assumed him to be the palace stablemaster.

This Laurent person was obviously his most trusted confidant, even more than the prince—even more than his own mother. He’d only mentioned her once, and with an odd look on his face, similar to the times he touched on the subject of his uncle.

Keeping clear of those subjects suited me just fine, and, after a few days on the road, we traded deep conversations for more interesting activities anyway.

Besides the impromptu horse races up the path, I introduced Orion to my favorite travel games clan members played during long rides between camps. Some of the wordplay ones I tried fell flat without Vaskian twists of pronunciation, but one of them was a huge hit with Lazar, who took great enjoyment in making sound plays out of wildly different Akielon and Veretian words—some of which I understood, most I did not.. The more vulgar he got, the more Orion, I, and the rest of the troop laughed. It even convinced Nesson to stop sulking.

Of course, Nesson joining us caused its own problems. At first, he was snappish, only speaking to out-play someone with a bitingly worded phrase. He tolerated me, was indifferent to Orion, and only acknowledged Lazar when he needed translation himself. Not often.

That changed once we spotted the first lone rider following us.

It was sheer luck that we saw them at all; the crest of a hill coinciding with a clearing a few hours travel back. Our tail end and designated lookout, a man about Lazar’s age named Rochert, caught a sight of a horse and rider following at a pace carefully chosen to keep up, but not exhaust the horse or alert us to their presence.

The message passed swiftly and softly up through the men until it reached the front. Nesson, riding just behind, tensed and pressed forward to speak to Lazar. They whispered, fast and frantic Veretian, turned to each other and away from me so I couldn’t hear. 

Two minutes later we turned sharply off the path, scattered through the heavy brush so as not to make a clear trail, and traipsed two hours downstream through a creek before edging back onto an even less-frequented trail than the last.

And that was only the first of many.

**

The release of tension was almost palpable when we passed the first patrol of the City Guard. Marlas was still a day’s ride out, Lazar said, but now that we were within range of reinforcements, he was alright with pausing our intense pace for the evening. Our horses were glad of the rest, as were we. We’d ridden all through the previous night trying to lose a shadowy pursuer that stuck to us near sundown.

_ “Just past those trees, you can see the whole city.”  _ Orion signed casually before swinging down from his mount and untying his pack. 

And oh, wasn’t that tempting. Lack of sleep and stress and nearing the city had made every member of our party antsy and impossible to live with. I didn’t want to be within earshot of Nesson’s snipping with Lazar about every twist of the path for another minute. With security so tight and my being ill, I hadn’t been able to even slip off to hunt. Any excuse to get away was to be taken.

Gracelessly—I’d been in the saddle for more than twelve hours; rough, even for me—I slid to the ground and tethered my horse. 

“Let’s go.” 

We made it almost to the trees when an indignant voice sounded from behind us. Nesson.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“On a walk.” I called back, seeing Orion sign something similar in my periphery. Before any more objections could arise, I ticked off on my fingers, 

“Yes, we’ll be safe; no, we won’t do anything scandalous; yes, we’ll be back by dark.”

I stopped to look back, stringing my bow with deliberate intent as I did.

“Happy?”

My glare was met with two equally irritated faces—for all their bickering, Nesson and Lazar were a force when united. They didn’t say anything, though, which we took as permission and left the camp.

The further away we got, the more it became obvious that our tension was not just sidelined from the rest of the party. Neither of us spoke; the quiet of the forest seemed to press in, more than calm the nerves.

Frustrated, I kicked out at a rotten log and got a bit of satisfaction when it crumbled under my boot.

_ “Nervous about tomorrow?” _

“No!” I snapped, then, “Maybe a little. I don’t know.” 

_ “I was.” _

I didn’t reply. 

Gold streams of evening light cut through the thinning trees ahead: trees, then grass, then empty sky. When we came out from the canopy, it was onto a clearing atop an outcropping. Below our feet, a city sprawled.

At its center was a fort, all reddish tan stone walls and white marble buildings inside. It looked like Ravenel might if someone thought to take down the keep and replace it with a palace. Away from the walls, more buildings stretched with neat, radial lines of streets separating them. They spread out to the north, east, and west, but south of the fort seemed free of civilization.

Marlas was more grandeur, more people, more— Just  _ more _ , than I’d ever imagined. The day’s mounting nerves coalesced into a hard knot in my chest. To hide my shaking I sat down, letting my legs dangle into empty air.

Dry grass and autumn leaves crunched as Orion sat beside me, one knee pulled to his chest as the other leg hooked over the ledge.

_ “It’s a lot,” _ he signed, not looking at me.

The twisting in my chest locked my voice in. I wondered if this was what Orion felt like all the time. I nodded.

There was chill wind at our backs; winter slowly descending from the mountains.

_ “Will you be going straight to the palace, once we arrive?”  _ I signed.

It was his turn to nod.

_ “Word of my early return will have reached them by now. Any delay will have everyone worried, probably.” _

I selfishly didn’t want that. I wanted a familiar face to escort me in. But that would involve telling him everything, and I wasn’t sure I could do that. Better to go in alone with a friend inside, than alone with him bitter I’d lied.

Still. The words pushed at my mouth, wanting out where a moment ago I couldn’t think of speaking. I swallowed, then pulled my feet under me and stood.

“I— We should go back. Sleeping will be hard enough without Nesson and Lazar chewing us a new one.” 

I heard him stand behind me and got two steps towards the camp before my wrist was caught in a gentle grip. I froze. There was a very brief moment of unreasonable panic, then it faded and I turned.

Orion didn’t drop his hand, but neither did he tighten his hold or pull me back. He stepped closer, just barely in my space and we stood there—a long span of seconds before he lifted his other hand and,

_ “Can I…?” _

Many things spun through my mind all at once. I thought of concerned eyes over signing hands, of noisy taverns and a different, tighter grip on my wrist; I thought of insinuations and disapproving frowns and laughing in the face of both; I thought of thrilling races on horseback and, unreasonably, of drums. I thought—

I thought of a certain twist of fingers and gestures and...   
  
_ “...cousin.” _

Heat flashed up my neck, into my face, and I stepped back quickly. I’d spent days trying to forget, to bury exactly who I was under games and signs and picking fun at the adults—I hadn’t actually expected it to work. 

“No!” And then stammered, “No, I— We can’t.”

Orion dropped my hand immediately. I saw the beginnings of a question in his fingers, and tried to forstall it.

“I can’t—tell you, now. But I promise, when we get to Marlas, I will.”

The flush on my cheeks was almost painful and I looked away, trying to get it under control. How could I have been so stupid? It wasn’t—I’d  _ known. _ All along, and still…

When I looked up, Orion had a quizzical eyebrow raised, but he didn’t look angry; there was just a rueful smile on his face. I hoped it wasn’t just to make me feel better, even though that was the effect it had. 

_ “No need to look so panicked. I just thought—”  _ He shrugged, “ _ It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry, I won’t ask again.” _

And he stepped around me, back towards camp, raising his hands to be seen from behind,

_ “You were right about getting any sleep tonight. We better hurry.”  _

_ ** _

I set out my bedroll near Nesson’s that night like I hadn’t in nearly a week, and flopped down to stare at the stars. He didn’t say anything. I didn’t either, for a long time—not until the sounds in the rest of the camp had died down. Eventually, I sighed into the expectant silence,

“You don’t get to say ‘I told you so.’ It wasn’t… It’s not what you think.”

“Isn’t it?” Nesson replied, but didn’t say anything else.

Restless, anxiety twisting in my chest, I curled up on my side, facing Nesson in the dark. I couldn’t say what I wanted to say. The words stuck and I pressed my face into the soft furs of my cloak that I was using as a pillow.

“You won’t have to walk in there alone.”

I didn’t lift my head, so my reply was a muffled, “But you hate them.”

“I hate traveling on horseback too—hasn’t stopped me yet.” There was a shift of cloth on grass. “I told you, I don’t break promises. Would I prefer you change your mind and bolt tonight? Yes. But I’ll see you safely to your father if that’s what you really want.”

It took a long time, long enough that I figured Nesson might have fallen asleep, for me to finally manage, “Thank you.”

Either he was asleep, or he didn’t reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this fic slightly Star Wars? Yes. Do I care? Kinda, yeah, but mostly no.
> 
> More Capri nonsense at @pointsofhonor on tumblr!


	9. Chapter 9

We didn’t reach the city proper until midday of the day after our rest in the forest dregs. The night between was spent at an inn just before the outer wall, where I got a taste of what status did for a person outside of a nobleman’s keep. 

The moment our party rode into the inn’s courtyard, all eyes were on us and conversation in the yard seemed to hold its breath. Then the breath was let out at the sight of emerald tabards and voices started up again, louder and more boisterous than before. No one flocked to us in joyous greeting, but the Prince’s Guard was clearly well-liked within the city limits.

This was the nicest inn I’d seen yet; there was a private room in the back that we were ushered into by the beaming innkeep. It was pleasantly warm after the autumn chill, a small fireplace in one wall cracking and flickering. We were served Akielon wine, sweeter than the dry Veretian wines and malty ales from weeks past, and while the meat was roasted with familiar spices, I’d never tasted bread like the flat pieces brought to the table.

Orion looked on edge the whole evening. I wondered if having to rely so heavily on a translator after two weeks of mostly being able to communicate on his own was part of the problem. Then again, I remembered the tension in his movements whenever Their Majesties came up in conversation. He was probably almost as nervous about reaching the palace as I was.

Nerves aside, we all slept better that night than we had since Ravenel. The guards took shifts on the two rooms the party occupied and I didn’t wake once between when my head hit the pillow and when morning light cut across my eyes in the morning. 

Warm blankets and anxiety kept me curled in the inn bed long minutes. I didn’t stir, ignoring the movement of Nesson and two of the guards about the room, until there was a sharp rap on the doorframe and Nesson’s voice saying,

“If you want to enter the city with our emerald entourage you’d better get moving, Rat.”

I moved. I completed my entire morning necessities one-handed, one hand fisted around my token and squeezing. When I left the room, tucking the stone back in my coin purse as I did, there were intricate marks pressed into my palm.

**

Marlas contained more people than I could have ever imagined existed. There was noise coming from every corner of my perception: people laughing, animals protesting, bargains being struck and arguments being had. It was chaotic enough that I almost felt as though I could  _ see _ the sound pressing in around us.

And this was only one of the smaller market courts.

We’d been forced to dismount soon after entering the main gate and I was walking next to Nesson, half-listening as he pointed out important landmarks and street crossings. It was hard to absorb any of it, though, not when there were more people and sights and sounds and smells than I’d known existed all at once.

“—s is the gate to the inner city,” Nesson was saying, the crowd pressing in even closer, “where the original fort boundaries were. The festival market is just through it. We can find you some proper clothes there after—”

Just ahead, a commotion broke out. Someone ahead had mounted up and was making for the white marble spires of the palace and Lazar was shouting and cursing after them. Orion, then.

Weaving around people, we came out into the more open area of what Nesson had called Market Circle and walked abreast of Lazar. He was still cursing, damning what sounded like the entire royal family to the depths of whatever Veretians had instead of the Three Hells. I heard “and all associated bastards,” and tried to stifle a laugh. Nesson rolled his eyes.

One foot in the stirrup, Lazar had himself hoisted up and about to mount when he stopped and let out a whoop of another emotion entirely. He dropped back to the ground and tossed his reigns to the nearest member of our party—Nesson, who glowered—and signaled to the rest of the guard.

“You men go chase down his lordship and escort him to the palace. I have business to attend to.”

Grumbling good-naturedly, men peeled off from our cluster, Rochert calling back,

“Try not to actually fuck him in the square. He’d die of embarrassment, probably.”

Lazar made a rude gesture at their retreating backs, muttering something about them having “no fucking idea about anything.” He left his horse with the reins in Nesson’s hands, Nesson sputtering protestations after him, and disappeared into the crowd.

To my right, I heard a woman’s voice, calling out her wares in rough Vaskian. Nesson didn’t seem to be moving anytime soon, so I made my way across the thoroughfare towards the voice. Off to my left, there was a surge of sound, like an uproar of friends finding one another. One laugh sounded like Lazar’s, but when I looked the crush of people was still too thick for me to see. 

The owner of the stall caught sight of me before I’d quite arrived and hailed me with a jovial,

“Little rider! You’re a long way from home for a festival. Come see my wares, yes?”

Cheeks heating at the diminutive address, I took the last few steps up to her table. All sorts of beautiful trinkets were arrayed there: intricately woven horse hair bands and bracelets, beads of wood and bone and antler, needle-threaded stories of the Goddess on leather pieces.

There were some familiar carvings layed among the other wares, and I picked one up to see the crafter’s mark on the back: Winding Roots. The one I’d picked up was a mountain cat, crouched low to the ground, with eyes of carved and polished jasper.

I was just about to inquire about its price, fact that I needed clothes be damned, when the shopkeep made a disappointed tutting sound at something over my shoulder. I turned to look and saw Lazar with his arms wrapped around a dark-skinned man, obviously Akielon and obviously the one my countrywoman was mourning.

“It’s a pity, this alliance,” she sighed. “It introduced Vereitan coupling to so many who could give us strong daughters.”

“My mother says the same every time she sees him,” agreed a boy’s voice to my right.

Turning my slightly-stunned gaze away from Lazar and his companion, I quipped,

“Passion's flames glow differently from the coupling fire’s, not always brighter.”

The newcomer laughed at that.

“My mother has said that exact same thing as well!”

I set the carving down, now very curious to meet this countryman whose mother apparently learned her wit at Halvik’s knee as I had, and— 

Oh.

Before Ravenel, I’d never seen my reflection clearly. There had been the occasional still pool in the woods, and a glimpse of dark eyes and brown skin in the flash of a blade, but nothing in the clans had the sharp reality of a looking glass. Just before we left the fort, though, I’d seen myself in the silvered glass of a mirror in Nesson’s rooms, where my things had been stored. 

I seemed to see that again now.

His hair was shorter, certainly; he was a bit taller, and the clothes we wore were as different as night and day. I was still in my clanswoman furs; he was draped in one of the single pieces of cloth that apparently passed for clothing here in the south.  _ Fine  _ cloth, cream fading down to forest green at the hem.

Distantly, I heard my name from the market din—Nesson, apparently noticing I’d wandered off. The boy heard it too, and his head tilted just a bit to the side. I recognized the gesture; I’d been mocked for it all the way through Vere.

Behind the stall, the clanswoman’s eyes had widened and she bowed low at the waist—to my twin—and started into some greeting with proper obeisance, but she was waved off. His eyes hadn’t left my face.

I kept my movements slow, feeling absurdly like prey under the eyes of a hunter, and reached for the purse around my neck. There was a lump in my throat. I swallowed it down and, like I’d done that night in the tavern, held out my hand and opened it, palm up.

“It’s been a long time, brother,” I hoped my choked-feeling voice was actually audible. “Sorry I took so long.”

For a long moment, nothing happened. The market spun on around us, the shopkeeper looked between us bemusedly, Nesson was still trying to locate me off in the background. 

Shadel’s eyes flicked from the token, to my face, and back. I made myself breathe. I recognized him—he was my brother, after all, and there were a couple very old scars on his face and arms from injuries I remembered him getting when we played as children—but I was now realizing he might not recognize me. And if not, my token probably wouldn’t mean much…

Then, very suddenly, I was knocked a pace back as he leapt forward and hugged me. Stunned, it took me a moment to return the embrace, and I realized his shoulders were shaking. I couldn’t tell if it was laughter or weeping, even when he said,

“I always knew you’d come find us! Even Father was starting to wonder, but I knew you would!”

And then I was being spun around, feet lifting out from under me with the speed. Shadel was definitely laughing now and some part of me irritatedly noted that he’d inherited our father’s impressive build, if his height and strength were anything to judge by. He’d be another head taller than me in a year, like as not. I was laughing too, though and not just from the giddy feeling of flight.

The feeling of flight that stopped very suddenly as Shadel set me down, eyes wide.

“Tasha, we have to get you back to the palace. You’re staying, right?” He continued before I could answer, “You need to be presented today, before any rumors can start. Goddess bless you got here so early, but we still have to run! Stay here.”

He dashed off towards his guard, leaving me blinking in the dust of his departure, but he was back before I’d quite registered the leavetaking.

“Come on! Pallas will catch us up, we have to go!”

And he grabbed my hand and pulled me along into an alley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dramatic Reveal #1! There are three, so brace yourselves.
> 
> Find me on tumblr @pointsofhonor~


	10. Chapter 10

Nesson’s shout followed us down the space between buildings, but no running footfalls gave chase.

“Who was that?” Shadel asked, then turned sharply, dragging me with.

“My friend, Nesson.”

“Ah, oops… Should we have brought him?”

We turned again to dash between an even smaller alley. It was so small we had to drop hands, running one behind the other.

“No, it’s fine. He’ll stay with Lazar and your guard captain. Pallas?” I tripped, knocked my injured shoulder into a wall, and cursed vehemently before continuing, “We can get chewed out together. Orion too, if Lazar can find him.”

“That’s right, why were you with Lazar? And how do you know Orion?” 

Shadel skidded to a stop when we emerged into a branching off of streets, getting his bearings. I used the chance to catch my breath before replying, feeling a giggle under my voice,

“Don’t sound so put out. We only met at Ravenel, and he agreed to let us accompany his party the rest of the way here.”

He made a miffed sort of sound but snatched up my hand again and pulled me across a small square to our left and into another passage. I tried not to gasp too hard for air, the tug on my arm aggravating the sharp ache that was starting to settle in around my lungs. My arm throbbed and I remembered the ugly purple veining around my wound.

We’d gone barely a minute more when there was a scuffling behind us. Shadel looked over his shoulder, past me, then asked,

“Are you sure your friend isn’t following us?”

Checking behind, I saw there was a figure following, but it wasn’t Nesson—unless Nesson had left his bag and cloak with the horses and was suddenly a head shorter. Thinking of far-off figures on horseback and dozens of detours through forested hills, I shook my head.

“No, that’s not him. We need to get back to your guard. Now.” 

“Right.”

Shadel picked up his pace and, unerring now that we’d come closer to the keep walls, led us through enough twists and turns to make me dizzy. A couple of times, we ducked into courtyards and came out another entrance, and there was one leap across what looked like a man-made stream flowing with clean water.

When we finally came out into the open once again, we’d lost the tail and were breathing hard. We’d emerged into an open courtyard in front of a huge gate: the palace gate. 

Confident as any prince should be, Shadel approached the guard, gave a cheery wave and walked on past with me right behind. The guard didn’t react at all other than a respectful bow.

Just inside, there was a knot of emerald cloaks to the right. Shadel hailed them just long enough to be noticed, then we were running again. A frustrated cry rose from somewhere in the group, but we were already within paces of the white marble steps.

I’d just made it to the stairs a step behind my brother when a hand caught my arm and swung me around. I reacted instinctively, still seeing shadowy figures out of the corner of my eye, and twisted, reaching for my knife.

Shadel turned at my surprised sound and was taking a breath to yell just as, blade to their throat, I recognized my assailant. Relaxing, I lowered the knife.

“You found me.”

“No thanks to you,” Nesson replied sharply, “I believe you have a bargain end to hold up,  _ highness _ .”

I pulled up short. His voice was cool, businesslike and formal. We hadn’t spoken once of the particulars of his payment yet, and I hadn’t expected it now, of all times. I’d figured it would follow after the chaos of my arrival—if I was being honest, I hadn’t figured on it at all. 

“Alright, then,” I said, stunned. “I’ll make the arrangements after we’re finished. Where are the horses?”

“With the stablemaster.”

“And my pack?”

“With the horses.”

Shadel stepped up then, not pushing me out of the way, but a solid presence at my shoulder.

“You’re very familiar with my sister,” he commented, matching Nesson’s tone perfectly in flawless, aristocratic Veretian, “for all you’re a commoner.”

I raised my hand in a gesture meant to stay Shadel’s accusation, but Nesson cut me off before I could get a word in.

“And you’re very reckless with both your life and you sister’s, for all you’re a prince. Did you even consider—”

“Don’t we have somewhere to be?” I interjected loudly in Shadel’s direction. He blinked.

“You speak Veretian?”

Hadn’t I been before? I nodded, impatient now and brushing off his incredulity.

“Yes, which I’ll need if you’re going to ‘present’ me at court. I thought we were in a rush.”

That refocused his attention and he nodded briskly. With no other warning, I was once again grabbed by the hand and pulled along as Shadel mounted the stairs two at a time. Nesson swore and I heard him start running after us.

“Want me to have my guard stop him?” Shadel asked, not pausing.

I shook my head. “No, he’ll just talk his way out and follow us anyway. It’ll take too long to figure out anything else, let’s just go.”

And we went.

**

The Imperial Palace, for all of its clean-cut lines of white marble on the outside, was an absolute maze of corridors inside. Even with Shadel’s tossed out commentary about a library here, a passage to the baths there, I knew I’d be getting lost for the next foreseeable future—if that future involved me staying, anyway.

Just inside, there had been a grand set of doors with an equally grand staircase wrapped around either side. We’d passed without stopping, but now came upon another set of stairs leading up. These were smaller, more everyday and familiar. 

We climbed and, when we reached the top and passed through the door, came into a hall much more richly furnished than the previous ones—I hadn’t thought it possible. There was a set of doors emblazoned with the Imperial crest in gold. Two guards stood sentinel and we walked straight past to another door, smaller and with only one guard outside: a woman.

She raised an eyebrow when we came to a halt in front of her, eyeing me and Nesson before turning her skeptical gaze on Shadel.

“Strangers in the royal wing at all is something close to forbidden, Your Highness, even for the Crown Prince. They’re certainly not getting an audience with Lady Kashel.”

Shadel shook his head, bouncing slightly on his toes.

“ _ She’s _ not a stranger, and her servant isn’t staying. I need to speak with my mother.” My stomach lurched. When the guard made no immediate reply, he added, “ _ Now _ , please.”

One more suspicious glance between me and Nesson, then she nodded. “Alright, but the servant stays out here.”

I’d expected Nesson to start blustering at being called a servant but, surprisingly, he played along. There was a terse edge under his act, but I doubted anyone else would notice. He stayed back as the guard ushered us through the door. Or rather, ushered me.

Shadel had dashed into the apartments immediately and was calling out, “Mother! There’s someone here you need to see!”

I stopped just inside, not sure what to do with myself. The room was spacious, full of early-day sunlight from large windows, and full of familiar sights somehow made unfamiliar. The colors, shapes, and textures all reminded me of home, but the actual furniture and decorations were far from anything we had out in the clans,

I was just considering reaching out to touch a cushion embroidered with the same filigree pattern that I remembered carving on saddle leather when the noise of approaching footsteps from across the room stopped me. Shadel was back, with someone just behind. He was practically vibrating with excitement, coming forward to pull me further in and then propelling me from behind towards the woman following at a more sedate pace.

Draped in a blue gown, hair arranged in an elaborate braid, I shouldn’t have found anything familiar about her and, at first, I didn’t. Then she spoke—just my name—and something fell into place in my chest. That something also started tears burning behind my eyes and propelled me out of my stunned stillness and forward. I could barely breath, but somehow choked out,

“Mother.”

A second later, I was pulled into a tight embrace—tighter and warmer even than Shadel’s first had been in the marketplace. Her voice in my ear, the warmth surrounding me; I felt like I was a small child again and, for the first time in many, many years, I started to cry.

There were words being spoken, though they seemed far away. Shadel, saying something. Then the sound of a door closing, but it wasn’t important because it’d been ten whole years since I’d even seen my mother.

We stayed that way, me wrapped up in her arms and not really speaking at all, for long minutes before Mother finally pulled back and placed hands on my shoulders. She just looked at me for a moment, then finally said,

“You’ve grown up; it is my biggest regret that I was not there to see it.”

I tried to speak around the knot in my throat, but only made a rasping squeak. My next attempt was better, if still rough around the edges.

“I missed you. So much.”

She nodded and guided me to a couch, sitting me down before settling beside me.

“As we did you. Now, tell me about everything—your age-mark ceremonies, your first colt, your journey here—I want to know it all.”

Her eyes were bright with both curiosity and what I suspected were unshed tears, but her voice was steady and warm. I remembered that voice, telling us stories and explaining why she’d just scolded us the moment before. I’d missed it more than anything.

She didn’t say more, though. I worked passed the rest of my feelings caught in my voice and started to tell stories of my own. She’d asked for a lot of them, but I’d barely begun before we were suddenly interrupted by the door being flung open and the summer storm that was my brother flying into the room. 

“Tasha, let’s go!” I started to protest, but before I could, he continued, “No, we need to go  _ now _ . I’m sorry, Mother; we’ll see you at dinner?”

He didn’t wait for an answer before hauling me up—by my good arm, thankfully—and dragging me out the door. Nesson was waiting, carrying a bundle of cloth twice the size of my head. The grimace on his face was less-than-pleased.

Shadel blew past him with me in tow, heading for a doorway even further down the hall. There was no guard outside this one, so Shadel had to produce a key and open the door himself before pushing me and Nesson inside. The door closed with a sharp snap.

Seeing my brother transition from near-manic excitement to brisk, efficient movement was an almost terrifying experience. As soon as the door closed, he relieved Nesson of the bundle and gestured for both of us to follow further into his suite—I assumed it was his, anyway. Where else would we be?

We came off the main room into a bedchamber with the main focus being a bed of far more pillows and silks and blankets than any one bed needed. The other piece of furniture that dominated was an oval mirror, taller than me and edged with worked gold. 

It was to the mirror that Shadel led me. I stood in front of it, fascinated with the person reflected. I’d seen my face in the looking glass at Ravenel, but to see my entire self at once was a novel experience.

I didn’t look much like my mother at all, which was surprising. I’d always assumed that’s how it happened; daughters grew up looking like their mothers, sons like their fathers. Seeing myself and Shadel side-by-side, though, it was obvious who had gotten the Vaskian blood traits.

We looked similar, there was no denying it, but were by no means identical. He had Mother’s nose and her grey eyes, all smooth lines and points. There was something more round about my face, more brown to my skin and, next to my brother,  _ I _ was the one who looked like an Akielon bastard.

Shadel was also looking at my reflection, a considering look on his face even as he bounced on his toes. He hadn’t said anything since we walked in, and his silence continued longer as he moved to the bed, dropped the bundle, and began pulling things from it.

I turned, curious, to see him pull a huge piece of cloth from the pile, delicate green that faded to a rich forest hue near the bottom edge. He looked between the fabric and me, face scrunched up, then nodded to himself. 

Before coming back to the mirror, Shadel also grabbed a few trinkets and a length of cord from the bed. When he spoke, it was to Nesson, a brief, “wait there,” with a nod back to the main room, before turning back to me.

“Undress. I’ll have to help you with this.” He made a face. “Normally I’d call a servant, but the staff gossip and we  _ really  _ can’t have that.”

Ah. That was apparently clothing he was holding. Grimacing more at the thought of the strange clothes than the need to disrobe, I did as he asked, dropping layer after layer until I was just in my under-things. I shivered. Marlas was warm, but it was still autumn.

Shadel winced in sympathy, but gestured for me to hold my arms out. I did and let him start assembling the surprisingly complicated garment. Pins at the shoulders, made of something that looked suspiciously like gold, held up the cloth while Shadel moved around me, wrapping the length deftly before finishing with a few small clips and the cord belted around my waist.

“It’s a shame you have to look so Akielon for this to work,” he said, sounding truly saddened as he finished tying off the cord in a complicated knot. “You would look amazing in some of the more Veretian fashions.”

He sighed, then stepped away.

“There!”

I blinked in astonishment. Somehow, with a length of plain cloth, he’d created a dress around me that was just as elegant as the gown Mother had been wearing. 

I must have gasped or made some noise, because Shadel’s grin popped up over my shoulder.

“I  _ know, _ ” Shadel’s voice practically glowed with smugness.

He stepped out from behind me and, seeing him in the mirror, I realized the color and style of my dress wasn’t chosen at random. Shadel had changed clothes before coming to fetch me, and his lighter-shaded tunic accentuated our resemblance ten-fold. It was almost uncanny.

While I gaped a bit longer, Shadel turned his attention to my hair. His face collapsed into an annoyed frown, which only deepened at a noise from the doorway—Nesson, knocking.

“What?” Shadel snapped, then brightened. “Wait, you’re good at servant things! Can you style hair?”

I snorted. The idea of Nesson as anyone’s servant, personal or otherwise, was hysterical. Which is why I choked on my own laughter at Nesson’s long-suffering “yes.” I was still sputtering through my shock when Nesson joined us in the mirror’s reflection and examined my hair with a critical eye.

“I’ll need a comb and some pins,” a squint at our faces in the mirror, “and paint.”

Shadel, who’d jumped to find the supplies, balked.

“No one at court wears paint.”

Nesson shrugged. “If you want this grand plan to work, let me do it. You two aren’t identical enough, otherwise.”

I was still unsure what this whole “grand plan” was supposed to be, but before I could ask, Nesson was making an aggravated sound at Shadel’s continued hesitation.

“Gods, boy, I know what I’m doing. No one will know she’s even wearing it, I swear.”

And then Shadel looked at me. For a moment, I didn’t have an answer, but then a hazy memory floated to the surface— _ I was a pet at the court at Arles _ —and I shrugged. Nesson’s efforts certainly couldn’t hurt the disaster that was my hair. And I wondered if he didn’t have a point about the paint… Apparently that was enough for Shadel. Without another word, he went sprinting off, out of the suite and into the hall again.

I saw Nesson’s eyes roll in the mirror as he started to undo the twisted-up braids at the back of my head. After the energy and chatter of Shadel’s presence, the silence was deafening. After our last exchange, I wasn’t sure how to begin a conversation with Nesson. He’d been something close to angry, worse than he’d been the whole journey here. If I was honest with myself, I hadn’t expected him to follow me all the way here, into the palace itself, since he hated the occupants so much.

“How are you feeling?” The words and a tug on my hair wrenched me out of my considering thoughts.

I hesitated, looked in the mirror once more.

“Strange,” I admitted, carefully twidling a fold of my dress. The structure was sturdy, but knowing that it could fall to a flat length of cloth with the right tugs left me cautious. “This is almost magical. How does a prince learn to do this?”

“You heard Charls’ stories about the Kings and their love of disguise and undercover missions. I would assume he learned it from them.”

A point I hadn’t considered. 

Now that Shadel was gone, the fears I’d been suppressing since we left the inn that morning came crawling back up my throat. The words slipped out, quiet and hesitant. Embarrassing.

“I didn’t think it would be like this.”

“What did you think?”

Most of my hair was loose now, tight-waved locks falling forward over my ears. I hadn’t worn it down in a while; I’d forgotten how long it was, ends brushing the small of my back. 

Nesson’s words could have been mocking, but they weren’t. Surprisingly, his tone was mild—so mild I didn’t even think before replying,

“I thought they’d keep me quiet. They don’t need another bastard complicating things, after all.” I paused, breathed. “I wanted that. Not…”

“...this.” Nesson finished, tossing away the last of the rawhide ties that had bound my hair. “Turn around once, I need to see—no, stop. We have to deal with that.”

I froze mid-turn as he’d asked, catching sight of what he’d pointed out: the poison scar. It had faded signifigantly, but was still visible. High up on my arm,  I thought my hair might cover it, if coaxed. That seemed to be his plan. He’d just started to speak again, arranging the tangled mess of hair with a thoughtful look, when Shadel came back into the room, bearing another armful of things.  

Whatever Nesson had been going to say, it was forgotten as he grabbed what he needed and went to work in earnest. While he worked, Shadel took all of my attention with the most intense and terrifying lesson on court and protocol I’d yet experienced—far worse than any of Nesson’s.

There were instructions on when to walk, when to stop, who to look at, how  _ long  _ to look at them. It was like Shadel was trying to build a character in all of a few minutes. As he continued, and Nesson completed the illusion, I realized that was exactly what was happening. 

Today, I didn’t get to me. I was the long-lost princess of Artes, returning in great ceremony to join in the celebration of the Equinox. Shadel’s focus on appearances and Nesson’s skill with spy-work were starting to make sense: to live in a place like this, you had to be able to be someone else whenever it suited. My already high tension twisted up another notch.

Shadel was still talking, all his words starting to blend together like Veretian had when I’d first started learning. I was starting to tune them out, but then— 

“ —and  _ Pateros _ will want to hug you, for sure. Father too, now that I think about it, and—”

I held up a hand, drawing him up short.   

“Wait, wait. Hold on.” Nesson stopped too, with a paint brush held ready in one hand. “Shadel, why do you keep using different names for our father?” Neither of them had even been Vaskian. 

“I’m not?” Shadel looked at me, nonplussed. “ _ Pateros  _ is Damianos, and Father is Laurent. Obviously.” And he continued on as if I’d asked the stupidest question in the world.

I didn’t register anything else. I was trying to sort out who in the three hells my family was even supposed to be. King Damianos was mine and Shadel’s father, obviously. And apparently Orion’s “Laurent” wasn’t some head stablehand, but the other King of the entire empire? Admittedly, I hadn’t thought of my father’s husband much. My father was Akielon, after all; I’d assumed the marriage was for politics and that he’d taken Mother as a mistress. The way Shadel talked, I must have been wrong.

Nesson tapped the side of my head.

“Close your eyes, rat.”

I did, trying not to laugh at Shadel’s indignant noise. I managed to hold it it, which was good because if I had, Nesson probably would have stabbed me in the eye with his tiny paintbrush. He’d been fussing with my hair up until now. I hadn’t had a chance to really look at it before he demanded I close my eyes.

The bristles of the brush tickled, making the muscles in my face twitch, and the paint dried cool and tacky in thin lines on my skin. True to his word, Nesson barely used any paint. A few brushes of paint on my eyelids, a slight dusting of some sort of powder on my cheeks and jaw. With so little, I wondered what kind of difference he expected it to make.

I stopped wondering when I got the go-ahead to open my eyes. Whatever I’d said about Shadel’s skills with the dress, Nesson’s work truly was magical. Mine and Shadel’s resemblance had been uncanny before, now it was almost terrifying. The few lines of dark paint had shaped my eyes to the exact angle and point of Shadel’s; the powders, adjusted my face to the soft oval of my mother’s.

Nesson didn’t say anything at all, just stood there looking satisfied and a bit smug. Shadel was gaping. Ignoring them both, I reached up to touch the soft curls of hair cascading down my left shoulder, then turned around myself to watch the dress swish around my ankles. I was enchanted.

The spell was broken by Shadel approaching, something glittering in his hands: a necklace. He draped it over my head before I got a good look at tit, but the chain was gold and a medallion of some sort hung from it, resting heavy on my breastbone.

I took the time between Shadel stepping away for something else and returning to look closer at the pendant. It flashed in the early afternoon light streaming in from the windows—rays glinting out from the single emerald’s sharp facets. Crisp lines of white-gold inlay were relieved into the stone in a now-familiar sigil. My token had probably looked like this once, I thought, before years of a child’s incessant handling had faded the enamel and smoothed down the facets. Had mine been set so handsomely, once?

Something tickled at the edge of memory—a metallic click and hollow sound, cold stone placed in my palm—but I pushed it aside. Shadel was tossing other things in my direction: more jewelry, a shawl, a diadem of hammered gold leaves that Nesson rescued and set on my head before I ruined my hair.

Finally, Shadel deemed me ready. I caught sight of us both in the mirror on our way out the door; two nobles on their way to a glittering life. I felt a very long way from home. Stupid, since this was supposed to  _ be _ home, but the feeling of watching myself from afar lingered the entire way back to those grand double doors.

We drew up short before the still-closed entrance, Shadel’s hand a steadying pressure around y wrist. Had Nesson followed? I didn’t know. All of my attention was filled with huge, carved doors that almost seemed to grow as we stood there.

“You ready?”

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. I tried again. Still nothing.

“You don’t have to do this.” Shadel was obviously trying for reassuring, non-judgemental, but the trill of pending disappointment was obvious. I wondered if he was always so open.

I couldn’t turn back. My clan wouldn’t take me back, after all, and I’d apparently been just a job to Nesson. There was always the chance that even this family, my true one, wouldn’t want me, would toss me out later. But now?

Now, I’d come here for answers from one person, and he was on the other side of those doors.

I swallowed, wet my lips. “No. No, I can do this.”

Shadel grinned, then darted over to a man standing nearby that I hadn’t even noticed. He was dressed in immaculate royal livery and, after Shadel returned to my side, he threw open the doors, announcing our arrival in a ringing voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gotta love that cliche princess transformation scene. Pain in the butt to write tho... Y'all ready for Dramatic Reveal #2? Stay tuned for it on Thursday!
> 
> @pointsofhonor on tumblr!


	11. Chapter 11

The hall was dead-quiet as we entered. There had been noise spilling from this side of the doors, but the herald’s announcement of our entrance had effectively silenced the entire room. Not that it lasted long. We’d barely gotten ten paces before murmurs and whispers erupted and began to travel.

I tried to ignore them, tried to focus on what was ahead— _ who  _ was ahead. There were more than just two people upon the dais across the room. The kings were, of course, the biggest draw to the eye, but I couldn’t look at them for fear of turning tail and running after all. Instead I fixed my attention on the three other people arranged about them.

Shadel had mentioned at some point that our father’s most trusted friend and advisor, the Kyros of Ios, had come north for the festival. I assumed the man standing to the left of the thrones with dark skin, long hair, and Akielon clothes in rich colors to be him: Nikandros of Ios, Nesson had said.

To the right was a man clad in shiny but obviously functional armor, sword at his hip. Probably the captain of the King’s Guard. And, also to the right of the kings, but further back— 

—was Orion. Oh Goddess.

We were halfway down the room now and the stares of the crowd were starting to bear down. I glanced quickly at Shadel, but he didn’t seem to feel them at all. Any tension he’d shown before had melted away like spring snow.

The stone under my sandaled feet gave way to rich, Patran carpet and we stopped. My mind raced to remember everything I was supposed to do and say, but then Shadel was speaking and I knew I had to actually  _ look.  _ So I did.

“Exalted fathers,” Shadel was saying. “May I present my sister, Princess Tasha, returned from her fostering in Vask to join us for the Equinox Festival.”

I felt the eyes of the whole room on me, but none more so than the ones I made myself meet. King Damianos’s gaze was warm as a summer’s day, filled with something like fondness, or pride. I didn’t like it—wanted to squirm under it, or return the look with a glare. I didn’t, mostly because I was too in awe of the picture he and King Laurent made.

My father was draped in a long, white garment similarly wrapped and constructed to Shadel’s tunic, with a cloak of deep violet draped across one shoulder. He was tall and imposing, dark hair and eyes radiating authority. He should have made the man on his right look small, slight in comparison, but somehow that wasn’t the case.

King Laurent was, in fact, about a head shorter than his husband, but seemed to make up for it with sheer force of existence. He was the visual antithesis of Damianos—fair rather than dark, structured Veretian finery laced down to his wrists contrasting Akielon drapes and folds. He was smiling, warm blue eyes over a close-trimmed beard a shade darker than his golden hair. The expression was less open than my father’s, though, for all it was pleasant and welcoming.

It was King Laurent’s barely-there raise of his eyebrows that broke me from my awed state and reminded me that I was supposed to be doing something. I curtsied just as I’d been instructed, relying on weeks of practice that Nesson had drilled into me. My pulse thundered in my ears. Through it, I heard my father say,

“Well met, daughter. We are glad to welcome you home for this joyous celebration.” 

This was where we were supposed to approach the dais, together. That was the most important part of this performance, that Shadel and I be unmistakably twins. We had to match exactly. I almost tripped over my own feet rising from my curtsy, but rescued the movement and stepped forward in tandem with my brother.

He’d predicted correctly. As soon as we approached Damianos embraced Shadel, then turned to me. I allowed it—of course I did—but didn’t know what to feel when he said, more personal than his earlier pronouncement,

“Welcome home, Tasha.”

Before I could pull together a response, he’d stepped back and King Laurent, who’d been speaking softly to Shadel, approached. He gave what I knew was the formal Veretian greeting of barely-there kisses to both cheeks, but before drawing back, he said,

“The servant who painted your face did an impeccable job. Make sure to keep them in your employ.”

The comment was so incongruous it lifted the overwhelmed haze that had settled on my mind. The rest of the hall rushed back in an instant. There was applause, cheers, Shadel tugging gently on my elbow to guide me to the right of the thrones. I ended up between him and Orion, facing the room full of people.

Cautiously, I chanced a look at Orion. He was grinning and signed in movements too small to be seen by anyone but me and Shadel,

_ “Well, that’s one way to explain.” _

The back of my neck began to heat and I hoped the paint would hide the flush crawling across my cheeks. Shadel looked between us, back and forth, then signed something too fast for me to catch. Orion waved him off, a gesture that looked like “ _ later _ ”. Something tight and afraid inside me started to come loose; if this was the worst of it, maybe staying here wouldn’t be so bad after all.

**

Orion’s “later” came sooner than expected. The audience session being held in the great hall ended not even ten minutes after Shadel and I arrived and we left just before the rest of court was dismissed. Orion guided our retreat to a room  with an open balcony a few minutes walk from the hall.

As soon as the door closed behind us, Shadel stepped forward then turned to pin me and Orion with a look. He didnt’ say anything, but the demand for information was clear. I fidgeted under it, not sure what to day, but Orion just shrugged.

“ _ We traveled here from Ravenel together, _ ” he signed, “ _ and some things didn’t add up. Tasha said she’d explain, and now she has.” _

That was diplomatically put; much better than what I would have come up with. Shadel was not satisfied, though.

“But how did you meet? Tasha, why were you at Ravenel? And why are you home so early, Orion? You were supposed to be gone for  _ months _ , not three weeks!”

Neither of us had the chance to reply before a knock came at the door. Orion and I both jumped away just before it opened to reveal two very irritated members of the Prince’s Guard. I recognized Rochert, but not the Akielon who accompanied him—one of Shadel’s, likely.

Despite the glares at my brother and cousin, Rochert’s bow to me was cheerful and accompanied by a smile.

“ _ Lady  _ Tasha. Exalted Damianos requests that you join him in his study. We can escort you there on our way to bring these rapscallions to a meeting with His Majesty, Laurent.” 

Both boys winced. They were probably in for a huge lecture about safety and the importance of not abandoning their guards. I almost envied them. I had no idea what I was going to say to my father, would have welcomed the chance to be yelled and and have something to be angry about. I couldn’t exactly turn down a royal summons, though.

“Alright then. Lead on, I guess?” 

I was ushered out the door, trailed by a reluctant Shadel and Orion. I got the feeling they were both watching for any opportunity to skip out on their guards yet again. It didn’t come.

Unexpectedly, Rochert didn’t immediately bombard me with questions about who I was, why I hadn’t said anything. He just talked as he had on the road—asked how I liked the palace, introduced his companion Atkis, poked fun at Orion’s obvious chagrin at being summoned to King Laurent’s office. The easy conversation lasted all the way through the twists and turns of hallways that lead to a single, heavy door.

Rather than the Imperial crest, the dark wood was carved with a lone lion, reared on its hind legs with a flowing mane. I hesitantly reached for the door handle, but was stayed by a tap on my shoulder. When I turned, Shadel pulled me into a hug. I returned it, holding tight even though it made the medallion around my neck dig in painfully.

“Good luck,” he said, stepping back. “I’ll see you later—if I survive.”

The laugh I responded with was only a little forced.

Over his shoulder, I caught Orion’s eyes on me. He raised his eyebrows and I knew the look for what it was: an offer out. Not like Shadel’s obligatory offer from earlier, but a real one. I shook my head. I’d come this far; I could face my father. Probably.

I regarded the door once more, swallowed, pushed down the last of my nerves, and grasped the handle. It opened with a click and silent swing of oiled hinges. There was only one person in the open, light room: my father, sitting behind his desk with a roll of parchment open in front of him. He looked up and smiled broadly at me when he heard the door.

“Tasha,” he breathed, coming around the desk as I closed the door gently behind me. “Let me look at you.”

Standing barely a pace away, he more resembled my vague memories of him from childhood than the magnificent ruler I’d met not an hour before. I felt small, remembered warm eyes and a looming shadow that came before losing everything. He reached out, grasped my shoulders; I flinched away with a hiss of pain.

Immediately he let go and stepped away, concern drawing lines on his forehead. There was a chair further inside and he gestured to it before moving to stand behind the desk again.

“Please, sit. I hear you’ve been traveling hard.”

“Thank you, I prefer to stand.” I barely recognized my own voice. It sounded more like Nesson than me—formal, flat Veretian.

The silence that followed was awkward and full of a tension that I’d completely expected, but wasn’t sure how to deal with. I’d spent so long practicing the language I needed to speak with this man, but hadn’t actually thought of  _ what  _ I was going to say. I’d attempted words once, twice, three times before Damianos—not Father or  _ Pateros,  _ because family was the furthest thing I felt from him right now—seemed to take pity on me and offered,

“You seem...troubled. I know your brother has a flair for the dramatic, so I understand if—”

“That’s not—” and I laughed, I think. It was a sound I’d never heard myself make before, harsh and sharp. “Sorry, I just— You  _ understand _ ? You reached into my life, plucked out the two most important things, left me with no family, no explanation, no future other than a thrice-damned rock and an invitation, and you understand? 

“You, the reason I didn’t recognize my own mother on sight, the reason I barely even know the twin  _ I shared my first breath with _ —you understand exactly why I’m  _ troubled _ ?”

My ears were ringing. My chest hurt. Damianos was staring at me, shocked. How could he be shocked? What had he expected, that I’d come crying into his arms like a lost child?

“Tasha… Tasha, I’m sorry—”

“For which part?” I spat. “For leaving me behind? Taking my family? Or the part where you forgot about me for ten years?”

“I didn’t forget—we didn’t forget! Tasha, we did everything we could to bring you back with us, believe me.”

“No.” My hands, fists at my sides, were shaking. “No, I don’t believe you because you’re one of the most powerful people in the Four Kingdoms and if you’d really tried everything, I’d at least have known  _ that _ !”

My voice broke; I might have been shouting.

“I had to find out who and what I am from a cousin I didn’t even know I had. An entire empire’s worth of power and influence, and I learned my sire is a King from a boy who can’t actually talk!” 

Head spinning, I stopped to draw breath. It looked as though he was about to raise his voice in turn, but then a sharp rap sounded from the door behind me.

“Enter,” he called, not looking away from me until the door opened.

At the King’s nod, the newcomer was let in by a guard. He bowed, murmured a respectful, “Exalted. Your Highness.”

Nesson. The angry whirl of emotions in my chest pulled up short and I looked to Damianos in confusion. He seemed, for his part, equal parts irritated and relieved by the interruption. In answer to my questioning look, he said,

“I wanted to meet this mysterious traveling companion of yours.” Then to Nesson, sharply, “Who are you, and what manner of connection do you have with my daughter?”

I answered. “He’s a silvertongue. I hired him to teach me Veretian and get me to the city.”

“My name is Nesson, Exalted,” Nesson added, not looking at me. “I met your daughter when work took me to the Vaskian border. Given the circumstances, I felt it unwise to let her go alone.”

Damianos’s eyes narrowed. “You knew.”

The tension in my shoulders ratcheted up a notch when Nesson shrugged.

“I had my suspicions. There are precious few other reasons for a child of the clans to carry the royal seal, and the resemblance is rather strong.” Dark brows lifted at Damianos’s skeptical look. “I lived in Arles once, Exalted. You didn’t exactly lie low during your first stay there.”

For someone who wanted nothing to do with Artesian royalty, Nesson was certainly going out of his way to make himself memorable.

“Besides that,” he continued, “it was blatantly obvious when we met your nephew. They are nearly as twinned as she is to His Highness.”

Damianos still didn’t seem convinced. His attention shifted to me for a moment. “It’s not a short journey from Halvik’s lands to Marlas, and I gather you didn’t have other company the entire way. Did he…”

I felt my eyes go wide and shook my head. There was a protest on my tongue, in Nesson’s favor of course, but I was cut off by Nesson’s deadly, “I would never.”

“How am I supposed to believe that? More than two weeks on the road and not a single mishap between the two of you? I doubt it. And don’t think I don’t recognize signs of a recent injury, even well hidden by costume.”

“That’s not—”

But I was cut off  _ again _ by Nesson spitting something in vehement Akielon, which Damianos responded to in kind. Back and forth they went, over my head and unintelligible, and the fury I’d been ignoring in past minutes flared back to life. It had always been this way, with Halvik, Nesson, and now Damianos. The frustration built, and built, and then finally burst out.

“I’m still here!” 

Their argument screeched to a gratifying halt. 

“I’m still here. I’ve always been here, but apparently that doesn’t matter.” Furious, I grabbed the medallion still around my neck and yanked it up and off. The chain caught in my hair for a moment, but I tugged it free and tossed the whole necklace onto the desk.

“Tasha, I’m sorry,” Damianos was rising to his feet, moving towards me, “Wait, I—” 

But I was already turning to the door. Damianos made to come forward, to stop me, but Nesson was always faster than I gave him credit for. He sidestepped, placing himself between us, and the confusion it caused was just enough for me to wrench the door open and flee the study. 

Voices followed me out into the hall, but they cut off as soon as the door shut. Only my own sandaled footfalls kept me company as I ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's where all the fun truly begins! Home stretch, here we come~
> 
> @pointsofhonor for my capri tumblr


	12. Chapter 12

When I finally made it out of the maze of hallways, the stables were easy enough to find. The fancy clothes Shadel had dressed me in made me stick out like a sore thumb, even for the short time it took for me to find our horses and the packs with them. A quick glance around confirmed I was alone in the back corner where our horses were stabled, and then I was changing from the beautiful dress into my spare shirt, tunic, and pants. Some spiteful part of me wanted to throw the dress to the ground. Instead, I folded the large piece of cloth neatly and set it atop a nearby barrel, the pins, belt, and diadem on top. 

If it’d been my Geriel I’d ridden in on, I would have simply slipped into her stall and curled up in the back corner. I didn’t trust Lord Berenger’s animals nearly as much, but right next to Nesson’s was an empty stall, so I vaulted the door and slid to the ground.

The words I’d hurled at my father, screamed at him, still echoed in my ears. His attempts to answer, weak as they had been, did not. For all he was a king, for all his apologies had been heartfelt and genuine, I couldn’t just….forget. He was the reason I grew up without a mother, the reason I barely recognized my own twin brother. Whether it was the deep-set anger, or the dissonance of this man Shadel called  _ Pateros  _ against the shadowy silhouette of my memories, I could not find it in myself to forgive him.

Tears burned behind my eyes. I saw Shadel’s face, open and happy and excited for me to meet our father, in my mind’s eye. I was going to have to explain my fit of temper to him, to mother, and I didn’t even know where to begin with that. Possibilities spun through my brain and out of control and— 

I heard footsteps coming down the passage—not the strides of stable hands or servants, but the purposeful snap of boots on wood planks; a noble’s walk. I curled up further into myself and held very still, which did absolutely nothing as the person stopped just in front of the barrel where I’d left my clothes. Oh well.

“Go  _ away _ , Orion.” I snapped, not bothering to stand up. Well, not until I saw someone who was most definitely not Orion peer over the stall gate to my back. A someone with golden-blond hair.

“Not quite.” He said, and the light was dim but I really hoped that was a wry smile on his Imperial Majesty’s face.

Panic making my limbs shake, I scrambled to my feet before attempting a curtsy, realized I was wearing pants, and bowed instead.

“I— I’m sorry, your Majesty, I didn’t—” I was stumbling, stuttering like I hadn’t in weeks over the Veretian formality. “I thought—”

He gave a dismissive shake of the head, waving off my apologies. “It was a good thought, and it  _ would _ have been Orion to come find you if I hadn’t met him on my way and sent him back.” 

He’d spoken this in Vaskian, thank the Goddess, and I relaxed back into my mother-tongue as well. 

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to have a word with you, away from the palace chaos.”

“How did you know I’d be here?”

He laughed then, a light sound. “You and your brother are very alike. Though, admittedly, I tend to find him in the loft more often than down here on the ground.”

“Oh…”

We stood there in silence. I didn’t know what to say; how was one supposed to talk to their royal father’s husband? Thankfully, I was spared having to continue our conversation.

“Did you ride into the city?”

I nodded, gesturing down the next two stalls. “Lord Berenger needed these two brought to his vendor, and he let us use them while accompanying Orion back.”

The king’s face took on a pensive cast as he followed my gaze, but he didn’t say anything other than, “I was thinking of taking my own mount for some exercise. Care to join me?”

**

We left the palace through a back gate of the fort, the guards letting us pass as soon as they caught sight of us. The gate led out onto an expanse of field, the same open area I’d seen from the cliff two days before. Afternoon light cut across our path from the west in bright swaths of yellow-orange and lit the edges of ragged ruins and columns in bright gold. No particular landmarks stood out, no one chunk of ruined wall any bigger or more important than the other as far as I could tell, but we seemed to be headed to a particular place. 

We rode in silence for a long while. Eventually, though, my curiosity got the better of me and I asked,

“Majesty? Where are we?”

“This is the site of an old battle. Historically very important, and important to me personally as well.”

He was riding a bit ahead. Without thought, I nudged my horse faster to draw up beside him. “How long ago was the battle? Were you there?”

“I was,” he said, voice going a bit distant, “as was your father. More than twenty years ago now, I think.”

I remembered seeing him and my father for the first time when I entered the grand hall. They had such a presence together—to see them on the battlefield must have been formidable. I thought back to what Nesson had told me about the unification, trying to remember if there had been a battle here. I didn’t think so. Then again, twenty years ago was further back than the unification...

Lost in thought, I nearly missed when we drew to a halt near an outcrop of ruined wall fallen on its side, a pillar crookedly shoved into the ground nearby, broken around waist-height. Startled, I pulled up on the reins and dismounted just after the king, leaving my horse to graze by his example, and followed him to the flat expanse of worn marble.

He sat and gestured for me to join him. I did, folding my hands in my lap and trying not to fidget. There was another long stretch of quiet before,

“Your meeting with Damianos did not go well.”

I winced. So this was what we were talking about. After a moment, I shrugged. He continued on, taking that as answer enough.

“My husband—” He stopped, tried again, “Damianos has more love in his little finger than I once thought was possible in an entire person. Unfortunately, he is not always the best at conveying it, or at listening, and he can be quite aggravating at times.”

That was...not what I’d expected. If I was honest, I’d expected a lecture on duty to my family and the throne, to be told I had to show proper deference and not yell harsh words at one of the most powerful men in the four kingdoms. Stunned, I nodded.

“I thought so. I will tell you, everything he said is the absolute truth. We did not want to leave you behind. But I also realize nothing I or Damianos can say will make up that debt to you. What I  _ can _ do is explain exactly what transpired, if you care to know.”

I wanted that. Throughout my childhood, every time I’d ever asked what happened that day, I’d been brushed off, told it was in the past and didn’t truly matter—by Halvik worst of all, who I  _ knew _ had been closely involved in the whole affair. 

A chilly breeze blew across the fields. I pulled my knees up onto the stone and to my chest, watching him a bit warily.

“Okay.”

**

“Damianos and I didn’t even know of your birth until five years after the fact. One day, instead of the usual diplomatic missive from Halvik, we received a message stating she’d found a solution for our problem of an heir.

“We had to rule Orion out of the line of succession early on. It took me many, many years before I could even whittle Damianos down to allowing him into the palace; making him our heir was out of the question. So we met Halvik and the rest of your clan near my estates at Aquitart.”

**

_ I was too busy to pay much attention to the commotion outside the tent. Shadel had said I couldn’t make a braided bracelet with ten threads and I was set on proving him wrong. I looked up briefly when Mother stuck her head through the tent flap and gestured to Shadel to come out, but went back to my work. The threads were getting shorter. I had to focus. _

_ It was only when, triumphant, I’d tied the last knot on my masterpiece that I noticed all the chaos outside. Mother and Shadel still hadn’t returned, so I picked myself up and went to find them. Just outside our tent, I stopped. The center of camp was filled with strangers, strange men on strange horses.  _

_ On the other side of the fire, near Halvik’s tent, I saw my mother speaking with two of the strangers, Shadel hiding behind her skirts. That was alright. Strangers sometimes came and went. I had to show Shadel my success! _

**

“We weren’t even meant to see you. Halvik made no mention of Damen having sired twins, but when you suddenly appeared, there wasn’t any doubt. You two could have switched places and no one would have known the difference, back then.”

**

_ The adults were talking when I crossed the camp. I ignored them, running up to Shadel and shoving my braided creation under his nose. _

_ “See!” I cried, “I told you I could do it!” _

_ It was suddenly very quiet and, when I looked up, Mother and the strangers and even Halvik were all staring at me. Shy, I retreated to hide behind my mother. Mother pulled me forward again with a soft laugh and said, _

_ “Now Tasha, don’t hide. This is your father.” _

_ The man she’d presented me to was bigger than any person I’d ever seen. He was bigger than most horses I’d seen, even. He crouched down though, to say hello, but he pronounced the word so terribly I laughed. Even the babies in the caregivers’ tents could speak better. _

_ He had hair like mine, I noticed—dark curls that went everywhere—and there was a glint of gold hidden somewhere in them. I reached out to touch it and he laughed, a warm sound to match warm brown eyes, and then he patted me on the head before standing once more. When he spoke to Halvik, it was in another language. The man to his right was saying normal words, though. I wondered if he was translating?  _

**

“Halvik was adamant on her terms. We would not take you with us to the palace. You would stay with the clan, grow up in the clan—a fair exchange. Artes got a Prince and a loyal ambassador to Vask, Halvik got the daughter of a King who would grow into a leader in her own right.

“It was our way, then, for me to do the negotiating in situations like these. Particularly since I was the only one who could speak the language tolerably. I—offered more than was politically sound, or easily possible at all. Even so, not even exclusive passage for her clan miles past the the border and the promise of whatever resources were found there was not enough to convince her.

“Had the stakes been lower, I might have simply ignored her wishes and took you with regardless, but she was our only true ally in Vask. A bad word from her could have soured relationships with the entire country. If there had been war, two royal bastards from an enemy country would have become targets, regardless of their age.”

**

_Mother shooed us away soon after. There was a new colt, still wobbly and at its mother’s teat, and we went to it. It was gold and white, and I wanted to name her. I was five, the age to name a colt and start to learn with them, and I desperately wanted this one._ _Shadel thought of boring names, names of people we knew. I thought that was confusing and started coming up with new ones._

_ We argued about names and braided the colt’s short tail again and again until Mother came to bring us back to our tent. Something looked off about the inside, but I was distracted by Mother handing me a pile of colored yarn. She asked me to untangle it. I stayed absorbed in that for a long time, until a shadow fell across my lap and I looked up. _

**

“One of the terms I made her settle on was that we had full rights to send letters and messengers to you, but you’ll find I’m not a terribly trusting person. Halvik had every reason to keep you in the dark about your lineage. Keeping a political bargaining chip is easier when they don’t know that’s what they are.

“I wasn’t prepared to leave with only her word that you would hear from us, so I took matters into my own hands.”

**

_ The shadow was the two strangers again: my father and the other. I set my tangled strings aside and stood up, remembering how to be polite this time. As before, my father crouched so he was only about a head taller than me, and he said in mangled Vaskian, _

_ “I have to leave now. If you ever wish to, find me at Marlas. Alright?” _

_ Baffled, I nodded. Where was Marlas? Was that where he lived? Why would I want to go there? And why did he look so sad? _

_ My father walked away towards the horses, but the other man did not. He wasn’t as huge as my father, but was still tall. His hair was gold, like the colt’s. He too bent to my level, looked around as if to check that no one was watching, then pulled something out of a pocket. It sparkled. _

_ As I watched, he took hold of both sides of the object and pulled hard. There was a click, a hollow, metallic pop, and then he held out something to me: a beautiful green stone, glittering in the sunlight and etched with a design in white. When I took it, he closed my hand around it. _

_ “Keep this. Don’t show it to anyone, not ever, and if you ever want to find your father, this will help you do it.” _

_ The stone was cold, but started warming in my hand. I was still confused, but at least these instructions made sense. Don’t show anyone the rock. Use the rock to help find my father. Maybe the rock was like the dowsing sticks the priestesses used sometimes? _

_ He was gone before I could ask. _

**

“From what I’ve heard, my suspicions were correct. We made every effort to stay in contact with you, but messengers disappeared, or came back with news that your clan was nowhere to be found near the border. Our intelligence network had just enough knowledge of you to keep us assured of your safety, but anything beyond that was more likely to cause harm than good.”

And, in a strange mirror of the memory I was still half-experiencing, King Laurent reached into his jacket and handed me what he found there: a chain very much like the one I’d left in Damianos’s study, but older and containing an empty gold setting. I took it, wordless, examining it and reaching for the stone I knew would fit.

It was quiet for a long time. The sun was setting in earnest now, shadows growing longer and longer, stretching across the field. From the grass, the flicker of fireflies was appearing. My token didn’t fit perfectly back into its setting; the years had worn it out of shape and it rattled about. I’d at least tried, though, and something about that simple action echoed the confusion I felt.

“You don’t have to stay.” 

I turned to meet the King’s eyes. He wasn’t smiling, exactly, but his expression was understanding. He continued,

“Since Shadel was a bit heavy-handed in his manner of introducing you, it might be wise to wait a few days before leaving, but we won’t force you to stay. Not if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t— That is, I’m not—” I sighed, frustrated. No words seemed to fit what I was feeling. “I don’t want to leave,” is what I eventually managed.

“Good. We don’t want you to, either.” He stood, then, offering a hand to help me up as well. “If that’s the case, we should be getting back. Tonight is the first night of the Equinox festivities. There’s a banquet and I, at least, need to be there.”

I accepted the offered hand, standing and taking a moment to carefully tuck away the token and necklace once again before following him towards our horses. We made our way back through the growing twilight. The weight of the day’s happenings was starting to press behind my eyes. I was so tired. Just before the guards came into sight, I managed,

“Thank you, Majesty.” Not just for tonight, I didn’t say.

He turned back to face me, a slight smile on his face, and I knew he’d understood.

“Think nothing of it. Also, I don’t expect you to be as familiar with me as your brother is, but if you’re going to stay, you may as well call me Laurent.”

 

* * *

 

 

Art by @[sitical](http://sitical.tumblr.com/post/180406527211/final-piece-for-avinryd-s-bigbang-princes)!!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For any of you who are interested, another small clip of pre-fic goodness, courtesy of mine and Sitical's convos about art:
> 
> Me:  
> Laurent's pretty extra, he gave the kid the shiniest most colorful thing he had on hand  
> Also he def pulled it out of a gold setting that he's gonna give her back later
> 
> Sitical:  
> Lmao, he could have given her a gold coin. But no, he had to go the extra mile
> 
> Me:  
> Yep. Wearing the royal insignia, split-second decides to leave it with a 5-year-old and tell her not to show it to anyone  
> He gets better as a parent, but the beginning is a little rough
> 
> Sitical:  
> Well, what can we expect? He doesn't deal much with children lol
> 
> Me:  
> Right??? He just thinks I remember getting a shiny thing from auguste and treasuring it, that must be the best way to approach this  
> A year later and he realizes, oh god, what if she did what little kids(eg Shadel two weeks after they got home) do and stuck literally everything in her mouth??? Is enamel poisonous? what have I done????
> 
> Sitical:  
> LMAO  
> he just sits at the dinner table, eyes wide in horror, screaming on the inside  
> he prays he didnt just kill damens offspring  
> on accident lol
> 
> Me:  
> Shadel reaches over from where he's sitting on ye olde booster seat and pats Laurent's arm. He has no idea why his Papa is freaking out, but is going to try and fix it


	13. Chapter 13

“Look, all I’m saying is that  _ maybe  _ he was trying to bail you out because you looked miserable.”

“And all  _ I’m _ saying is that it was terrible and I would have found a way out myself.” 

“What, you mean ask Father to find an excuse for you to leave like you did the last three times?” Shadel finally stopped and turned to face me, hands planted on his hips. “That’s the exact same thing!”

This argument was officially tedious. How my brother was both master of manipulating an entire room to his whim, but also unable to appreciated achieving the same effect with subtlety was beyond me.

“It’s not the same,” I snapped, “because when Laurent does it, no one notices.”

With a dramatic groan of exasperation, Shadel wheeled around and started walking again. “No one would have noticed  _ Pateros’s _ method either, if you’d just gone along with it.”

Three days of living in the palace had taught me that we were possibly headed towards the library. The hall was deserted, our steadily-rising voices bouncing off the walls and marble floors, so I didn’t even bother trying to keep my voice down or tone neutral. Besides, Damianos had done a wonderful job of airing this particular insecurity earlier.

“I’m trying to make people  _ forget _ I wasn’t raised in court, not remind them.”

“They’re not going to forget.” Shadel stopped abruptly and pushed open a door I hadn’t noticed. His voice dropped to a hush as we entered. “No one’s going to forget, so trying to hide it is a waste of energy.”

His voice suddenly sounded muffled, probably because we’d traded polished marble surroundings for close-backed shelves of dark wood. I hadn’t seen the library yet, but I was pretty sure this wasn’t the main entrance. It was close enough quarters that our guards, who were almost certainly following at a distance, wouldn’t be able to squeeze through comfortably carrying a sword.

Clever.

“Honestly,” Shadel was still talking, “The way you act, I almost wonder if it’s actually Orion you’re twins with.”

I could feel my face twisting into a grimace. Things were already awkward enough with Orion without Shadel pulling our family resemblance even closer. And speaking of:

Emerging from our shelf passage brought us into an open space dotted with tables and desks. There was a familiar head of black curls bent over one, deep in concentration, presumably over a book. Shadel made a beeline for him. He plopped into a chair across, folded his arms and rested his chin on them, staring expectantly at our cousin. He was ignored.

I followed more slowly, taking in the room. It smelled like dust and leather—warm, and slightly musty. In the quiet I could hear every breath and shift of movement, the shushing of pages being turned. Even my footfalls on carpet were clearly audible as I approached the table and made to see what Orion was reading.

He looked up, then.  _ “What?” _

“We’re going to the training grounds.” I winced at how loud Shadel’s voice sounded in the near-silence of the library. “Will you come?”

_ “I can’t” _

“Why not? You’ve still got to practice, especially since you were gone so long.”

Orion pulled a face.  _ “The weapons master says, if I don’t take a break, I’ll be forbidden from riding in the games.” _

Shadel made a dismayed sort of sound, but I stopped keeping track of the conversation in favor of examining the book Orion had been reading.

The text meant absolutely nothing, obviously, but what I could see of the page also had detailed, inked drawings. I craned my neck to try and see one of the larger ones around Orion’s moving hands, and both he and Shadel stopped to stare at me.

_ “I thought you didn’t know how to read?” _

“I don’t,” I agreed, “I’m trying to look at that picture.”

When Orion obligingly moved his hand, I made a face at the creature rendered on the page. It was hideous. All spines and giant, bugged-out eyes, it was unlike anything I’d ever seen.

“What is  _ that? _ ”

_ “A fish,”  _ Orion replied.  _ “They’re found in the south, near Ios. They puff up when they’re startled and they’re full of poison.” _

Something sparked in the back of my mind. Still examining the book, I blindly tugged a chair closer and sat down. None of the rest of the pictures seemed to relate to the fish or the poison. The scribbles between the illustrations remained frustratingly uninformative.

“Theo said something about a fish…” I said, distracted. “Does the book say anything about people using the poison on weapons?”

_ “No, that’s what I was going to look for next. There’s—”  _ and he started signing too fast for me to understand, but it seemed to be about a book. Or maybe multiple books?

There was a groan from across the table. Shadel had dropped his head into his arms, moaning,

“You’re as book-obsessed as Orion and you can’t even read yet.” His eyes were wide and pleading, possibly even tearful when he looked up at me. “You’ll still come down to the yard with me, before the library swallows you, right?”

Orion had wandered off at some point, but now he was back, dropping a book on the desk in front of me before signing quickly and intently to Shadel. Shadel brightened and jumped from his seat.

“He might be at the training yard! Let’s go see.”

I paused to look at Orion’s discarded book before following them out—a snake wrapped around a rod, like the symbol on the door of the physician they’d taken me to just after the banquet. Was the physician the one we were looking for at the training yard?

I asked as much when I caught up with them just before the door.

“No, we’re looking for Nikandros. The Kyros? He mentioned something going on in Ios that Orion things might be related to your poison thing, but—”

_ “—but Nikandros won’t talk to me, so Shadel has to ask.” _

I almost asked why, but then realized. It was the same reason Orion had dyed over the golden-brown roots of his hair with black as soon as we’d arrived home. The Kyros must have something against his mother, who’d apparently been a part of the plot against Damianos. I hadn’t met my aunt Jokaste, and I wasn’t even sure what kind of person she was. Orion never talked about her, and Shadel had yet to mention her either…

Trying to construct an image of what she might look like—everything about Orion that didn’t resemble Damianos all in one woman—I didn’t even notice when we arrived outside until the bright flash of sunlight on metal had me blinking away stars. People were sparing in the main courtyard of the training grounds, a shield’s shiny surface the culprit of my blinding. 

To the edges of the yard were sections cordoned off for other things. Two men wrestled over in the corner,  _ wearing no clothes.  _ I looked away quickly. One whole edge of the yard was devoted to non-martial athletics: throwing disks, foot races, someone was even vaulting a tall obstacle using an enormous pole. And then, to the other side of the yard, an archery range.

Shadel had taken off in the direction of the wrestling ring, but Orion noticed my gaze caught on the range.

“ _ Your bow is most likely in the armory. We could shoot a few rounds?” _

The idea of something familiar and physical was too tempting to resist. I’d finally managed to convince Shadel that I could still come across as a princess and wear pants—well, leggings; a Veretian concession under a chiton that was better than nothing—so there was really nothing stopping me. I grinned, bouncing a bit on my toes.

“Yes, let’s do that.”

**

It wasn’t until a servant had fetched our weapons and we were facing down the targets that I remembered something important—I hadn’t actually shot my bow since that night in the forest. I’d kept it with me, kept it at the ready since the first shadow followed us from Ravenel, but the last arrow I’d loosed hadn’t found its mark in a target.

That knowledge had my arm shaking as I pulled back for my first shot—or was that the re-kindling burn of my wound? My first arrow lobbed, arcing and only barely sticking in the target. Terrible form, worse execution.

I drew again, stronger and sure, but then my surroundings seemed to shift. For the briefest moment, midday sun flickered midnight-dark; shadows and screams hovered just on the edge of real. When I came back to myself, the second arrow had missed the target entirely.

This was ridiculous. I could feel the stares of onlookers on the back of my head, the tension of Orion next to me, forcing himself not to shoot me an incredulous look. I breathed in, out—three arrows left.

Clanswomen weren’t taught to shoot standing still. Mounted archery was the staple skill of any clan warrior and we didn’t practice on ranges if we could help it. Our short, recurve bows weren’t built for it. I hadn’t been raised to stand, aim, breath, release. Why was I trying to do that now?

Fleing my hand and adjusting my grip, I searched for the right mindset. Drawing my third arrow, I felt it, grasped it— 

_ On your left _ —fluid as moonlight, my shot released and I drew again, but those weren’t targets and they weren’t down a range. Two more shadows with movement flashing between— _ don’t hit Nesson _ —and I let fly once, twice.

I didn’t miss; I couldn’t have missed if I’d tried.

I came back to the training yard in a blinding glare of sunlight. As the rushing in my ears subsided, I could hear Shadel shouting something, too far away to be intelligible yet. The sight and sound of arrows impacting flesh echoing in my mind’s eye, I furiously blinked the remaining flares from my vision to look down the range.

Three targets, three arrows dead-center.

It was a warm day, full of sun, but I broke out in an icy sweat. Shadel had made it to the range now and was whooping with glee, saying something about festivals and games and “Tasha, you have to compete!”

I didn’t respond. My eyes were still fixed downrange, not really seeing anymore. There was a bright, sour feeling in my mouth. Someone was waving a hand in front of my face, then gently shaking my shoulder when I still didn’t react. No words, though—so, Orion.

I was breathing too fast, starting to get dizzy. Trying to speak, I managed,

“I—”

—before dropping to my knees and retching, vomiting into the sand.

It was at least a minute before I got myself back under control. I hadn’t eaten much for breakfast, and whatever I had was now soaking into the ground before me. There was a burning in my eyes; my face was too hot to feel the tears I knew were on my cheeks.

I shrugged off Orion’s hand—still on my shoulder—and Shadel’s general hovering and stood, scrubbing the tears from my face. Everyone else in the yard was studiously ignoring the archery range. Well. Everyone except two people: Kyros Nikandros and Exalted Damianos.

Goddess damn them all.

There was just enough self-control left in my body to keep me from sprinting off the grounds, but only just. I heard Shadel behind me, about to give chase before the sounds of a scuffle broke out. I assumed Orion had grabbed him to keep him in place. Kind of him. 

By the time I reached the palace my eyes were dust-dry. I hadn’t blinked once.

Inside the palace I dropped all pretense of dignity and broke into a run. I still didn’t know exactly what was where, but the royal apartments were up, so I took the first set of stairs I passed two at a time. The hall I found was unfamiliar, but it was also empty so I dropped down to sit on the top stair, pressing my flushed forehead to the cold marble wall.

Goddess knows how long I stayed there, willing my breathing to slow and the nausea to fade. At some point, I started to shake. They had been too far away to actually see, but I could imagine the look on Damianos’s face. His daughter, making such a disgrace of herself in front of his best friend?

My mind’s eye was mid-imagining of the disgusted twist of lip, the embarrassed slide away of gaze, when footsteps echoed from down the hall. Startled, I scrambled to my feet. There was no hope for my appearance—though there was no vomit on my clothes, thank the Goddess, I was dusty and my splotchy face definitely had dirt on it. Those facts were thrown into sharp relief by the person approaching.

She was beautiful, tall, the diaphanous dress she wore only accentuating her height in falls of pale lavender. In the sunlight from the windows she passed, her golden-brown hair flashed to a bright blonde, almost butter-yellow for a moment. She walked gracefully, slowing when she caught sight of me, then quickening her step as if afraid I’d bolt. A fair assumption, given my state.

Since we were near the royal quarters and I could find familiarity in the cast of her face, I assumed this was Orion’s mother, Lady Jokaste. She obviously wanted to speak with me, so I stayed where I was. Her poise, when she approached was so regal I had to remind myself that princesses don’t bow to court ladies. I did nod in acknowledgement of her curtsy, as I’d been told was proper.

“Your Highness,” she greeted. Her voice was a resonant alto, not dissimilar to Laurent’s quiet tenor.

“Lady Jokaste,” I replied, “I’m glad to make your acquaintance at last.”

And approving look crossed her face. “Your Veretian is very good for a Vaskian so new to the empire.”

“I—” 

I didn't’ want to talk about Nesson. We’d barely spoken since that disastrous meeting, only really seeing each other at public meals. It’d taken the events of the last four days to teach me that I’d never had any real friends outside my clan—to show me that Nesson had been one and I missed him.

“—had a lot of practice on the road,” I finished lamely.

“In the language, at least.” She cast a critical eye over me. “In other aspects, you seem a little...overwhelmed.”

I was so tired and she was so correct I couldn’t even muster up embarrassment at being so easily read. I just slumped against the wall and slid down it to sit on the stairs once more.

“Yes…” I whispered, defeated.

Rather than raise one perfect eyebrow and pick her way around me like I expected, Lady Jokaste moved closer, rearranged her skirts, and joined me on the stair step. I blinked in surprise. She seemed just as comfortable seated on the floor with me as she had floating down the corridor. I remembered she was a mother as well as a lady.

“It’s a lot of pressure, coming into royalty from a common background. But surely you knew that?”

It sounded like  _ she _ knew from experience, but I shook my head.

“No. No, I didn’t know; nobody knew.”

“Somebody knew.”

I was about to ask how she knew about Nesson, then I saw she was gesturing to my injured arm.

“What do you mean?”

“That poison,” she elaborated. “It’s employed by a cult of assassins from the south. I’ve suspected they are being employed by enemies of the empire, and now—”

I cut in. “But I wasn’t the target. We ran into them transporting captive children near Ravenel. They—” I stopped, sucked in a breath, “Lord Berenger.  _ Orion. _ ”

Jokast’s expression was grim. “I’ve been looking for a chance to speak with you and the silvertongue before taking this to His Majesty.” She stood, offering me a hand up.

“Watch yourself, Tasha, and don’t go anywhere alone.”

Swallowing, I nodded. Things were falling into place. Not everything made sense, but one thing was for sure—we were all in danger.  Head spinning with plans to consult with my brother and cousin, I almost missed Jokaste’s next words.

“You and my son are very alike, you know. Both of you, always running. At some point, you will need to settle; take care you don’t run from the place that you would prefer to stay.”

She was walking away before I could ask her what on earth she meant by that.

**

Lost in thought as I wandered the upper floor searching for my room, I nearly jumped out of my skin in fright when I heard arguing voices from around a corner. There was a curtained off alcove, hiding a fragile painting I thought, and I darted behind it just as Damianos and Laurent rounded the hall. Holding my breath, I strained to listen—not that I needed to since they weren’t whispering.

“—you just listen? I know, it sounds completely impossible, but just consider it.”

“Consider what, Damen? That a boy dead for fifteen years is suddenly alive and wandering about our palace? Why don’t  _ you _ consider how ridiculous you sound.”

“I  _ know,  _ alright? I know, but the way he acts and the way things keep adding up—”

“Really? Recall, Damen, we both saw—”

“We both saw one part of a corpse that, admittedly, he had no reason to lie about, but that could have been any child with pearl netting in his hair! Laurent, you and I both know you’ve got a blind spot the size of—”

“I know very well where you think my ‘blind spots’ lie, Damianos, but you’re wrong. Nicaise is dead, end of discussion.”

Damianos’s frustrated sigh faded into muffled noise as he and Laurent continued down the hall and towards their chambers. I stayed in my hiding spot for another long minute, making sure they were out of earshot before continuing on my way. More mysteries. I needed to talk to Shadel and Orion. And Nesson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so the plot thickens... Also this chapter is So. Long. But I didn't' wanna cut it so whatever, I guess.


	14. Chapter 14

I had to question four different servants—the first three only spoke Akielon—before I figured out where Nesson was staying. Accompanied by Talik, the woman chosen as captain of my guard, I trekked across the palace to the guest and minor noble’s wing and knocked firmly on a non-descript door. I had to knock a second time and was about to attempt a third before the door creaked open to reveal a familiar scowl.

“Ah, Your Highness. Come to rescue me from house arrest?”

“House arrest? What are you talking about?”

“Didn't’ you hear? I’ve been invited to stay as a guest here in the palace until further notice. Of course, an invitation from our illustrious rulers isn’t much of a choice, is it?”

I winced, even though his situation was only half of my fault, at worst. Spying for the Crown’s allies was bound to catch up with him eventually.

“I’m sorry… But, you could consider this a rescue.” I grinned, faking every ounce of cheer I could muster. “You owe me a trip to the festival market, and we’re going now!”

“ _ I  _ owe  _ you _ ? If you recall, rat, our deal went the other way around.”

I shrugged. “Let’s just say you’re paying me back for holding out on some very important information our entire journey.” I continued over his next interruption—and wasn’t that satisfying, “No questions, just grab your cloak and let’s go.”

We stopped briefly in an empty sitting room for me to change into some common clothes that I’d had to  _ beg _ for. I’d taken my case all the way to Damianos, who’d given me a considering look before saying he’d talk to the tailors and, more importantly, my fashion advisor Shadel. 

Something told me he suspected my plans for the disguise, but I also distinctly remembered stories of him engaging in similar shenanigans, so I wasn’t too worried. Besides, I’d promised to bring a guard wherever I went. After Jokaste’s warning, I wasn’t taking any chances.

Talik removed her royal uniform as well, accompanying us as a plainclothes soldier on our trip into the city. We blended seamlessly into the crowded main thoroughfare, nothing about our appearance at all out of place in the multicultural throng. Once I was certain that the din was enough to mask our conversation, I put my plan into action.

I started with cheery smalltalk, chatting about minor nobles and the gossip I’d picked up from the servants. I asked if he’d found work in the palace, if he was even looking for it, and was just dancing towards my first real question when Nesson sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Rat, what is it you actually want to know.”

I stopped, sighed, then in a more normal tone, “What do you know about the assassin cult from the coast of Atros Bay?”

That brought him up short. “The assassin’s cult— Where did you get that idea?”

“Books, Kyros Nikandros, Lady Jokaste.” I clasped my hands behind my back, feeling stupidly shy, “You  _ did _ tell Lord Berenger I might make a decent apprentice. I thought I could prove you right.” 

Nesson gave an irritated huff that I was pretty sure meant he was pleased, or embarrassed, or something of that nature. Abruptly, he turned to examine the wares of a stall—Patran weavings in intricate patterns. I followed, confused. Once I was within low voiced range, he said,

“This isn’t a game, Tasha. It never has been. That nest of eels has been on the rise for years, funded by malcontents and dissenters. They must have found a very good patron in the last few years, because the ‘recruiting’ caravan we caught is the third one I’ve found in that time.

“We were insanely lucky to get away with as few casualties as we did. Had they known who you are, had  _ you  _ known and they’d captured you, things could have gone terribly wrong. Keep out of this. It’s being handled, you just need to stay safe—all three of you.”

I clamped down on my instinctive protest. If he knew how invested I was in this, he’d keep an even closer eye on me, maybe even pull Laurent or Damianos into it. Probably Damianos, since he avoided contact with Laurent like the plague.

Calculating carefully, I let my shoulders droop, making my voice irritated but resigned. “Fine, I promise not to get involved. But I want to know, still.”

He didn’t look completely convinced, but said, “That’s all of it, really. They’re an ancient order, which you could probably find in a book somewhere, been around since before any of our recent history. They kill for money and someone’s funneling a lot of it to them.”

And that was the tone signal that Nesson was done talking about this. I nodded, dropping the subject. That information, combined with what Shadel had gotten from the Kyros, was a very detailed picture indeed. I could work with that.

I checked to see that Talik was still in sight, which she was, then peeled away from the Patran stall with a smile at the merchant. Nesson spoke a few words with the man before catching up and commenting,

“That’s not all you wanted to know, was it?”

It was really irritating how little I could hide from him. My attention was caught by a stall full of shining, royal blue banners with starbursts on them. Bells tinkled from another stall in the vicinity.

“Who was Nicaise?”

No response. There was suddenly no presence at my shoulder. I turned, saw Nesson had stopped dead and was staring at me, expression unreadable. I felt my eyebrows go up. Eventually, he shook off whatever it was and joined me at the stall, picking up a blue scrap emblazoned with gold thread.

“Nicaise—” he stopped, considered, “Nicaise was a boy in a terrible position, who died for trusting a man who wanted to be king.”

I’d never heard him so serious. Something in that tone told me this was not something to push at, so I let it lie. His hands had tightened convulsively around the banner, crushing the fabric before he realized it. With a guilty look at the merchant, he un-clenched his fists and set the token back on the counter.

“Apologies,” he muttered in informal Veretian before turning sharply from the stall and melting into the crowd.

**

It took me and Talik at least twenty minutes of searching before we found Nesson again. He’d recovered from the strange mood I’d thrown him into and we spent the rest of the morning in companionable exploration of the market.

There was a street vendor selling traditional Vaskian sweets, which I made Nesson try. His face scrunched up at the sweet, sticky seed cakes, but I had no sympathy. He’d told me that the black, chewy candies from an hour before were a Veretian staple and I’d lost feeling in my mouth for trusting him. Never again.

We were cheerful and relaxed when the sun passed midday and we started back to the palace. Seeing the white marble dome of the palace gleaming, I thought about what Nesson had told me of Arles, the domes and spires of the castle. It must have been magnificent. The thought brought a random burst of curiosity.

“Nesson?”

“Hmm?”

“How old are you?”

“Strange question. I’ll be thirty come winter.”

“I see.”

**

We’d arrived at the palace and split ways—me to the training yard and him to some mysterious meeting—before I realized what was bothering me. Since arriving at the palace, I’d learned exactly what “pets” in the old kingdom of Vere were. Talik had been one, she’d said, before the practice fell out of fashion and her mistress took her as a free lover. I was stringing my bow when the numbers finally added up in my brain. The string missed the notch and my whole bow whipped back straight, bruising my shins and slicing inside the joints of my fingers.

If Nesson had been a pet before the unification, he would have been even younger than me. There were age limits on the coupling fires for a reason, and considering the ramifications of what Nesson told me was sickening, to say the least. The thought ate at me.

I was in the training yard until almost sundown. Shooting was still nausea-inducing, getting worse with every inch of lengthening shadow, and my hand was dripping blood down my forearm before I called a halt to my practice. All of that was for the best, though, since I couldn’t think of anything else—not of assassins, not of parents, not of child courtesans or boys who died before their time.

I would compete in the Equinox Games, I decided. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more~


	15. Chapter 15

The final day of the Equinox Festival dawned bright and clear. I’d arrived in Marlas six days before and, on this day of balance, the tension around me had never been higher. Something was coming; something had been building for months, years, and it was coming to a head. We could all feel it.

Traditionally, a parade preceded the festival games and the royal family led the procession, just behind a young athlete selected to carry a torch from the city. This meant that Damianos, Laurent, Shadel, and I all road in a group surrounded by guards. Fine, except we were missing two key people.

Orion was welcome in the royal box by default, and I’d insisted long and hard enough to ensure Nesson a spot as well, but that was later. Between the city and the arena both of them were out of sight. Anxious, Shadel and I traded glances from where we rode behind the kings.

The roar of thousands of voices greeded our approach. The great arena was a huge structure—I’d only missed seeing it on my first view of the city because the fort walls were even taller. It was built entirely of pale sandstone carted in from a coastal quarry, walls and stair-stepped rows of seating encircling an oval pitch of dirt. We entered through a gate in one of the oval’s long side. High above and across the field was the covered balcony we would occupy.

We dismounted and climbed to the box via pack passageways lit with torches. Two stair flights up, Orion, Jokaste, and Nesson joined us. Damianos and Laurent shot twin mistrustful looks at Jokaste and Nesson, respectively. I’d known Damianos didn’t trust Lady Jokaste and, to some extent, Orion, but Laurent’s reaction was interesting. Perhaps Nesson’s avoidance of anything to do with Laurent hadn’t gone as unnoticed as I’d thought?

I sent Orion a questioning looked and he nodded, a very slight movement. Good. That meant the Master Physician had come after all. As there were multiple other palace physicians, Paschal hadn’t been obligated to attend the event. He was old and didn’t often leave the palace. Considering the likelihood of poison attempts, though, we’d fought hard to get him to come. The price was my cooperation in his monitoring of my wound through the games—a small thing, really.

Blinking to adjust my eyes, I emerged from the comparatively dark passage onto the balcony with the rest of my family. Armed members of our guards filtered in behind us. They faded, watchful, into the shadows while Damianos and Laurent stepped forward into the sunlight. The crowd below roared its approval. I could almost imagine the stone shaking under my feet.

On the pitch—I’d approached the rail just after the kings—the torch-bearer raised her burden in salute. At the royal return of her gesture, she turned and approached the large basin whose contents caught fire as soon as her torch fell into it. The lighting of the great beacon brought another cheer from the crowd and all of the competitors on the field saluted us in unison.

And so, the games began.

Despite the looming cloud of anxiety, the excitement and energy of the event was imposible to resist. Peacetime sports came first to honor our empire’s history, free from true wars since the Unification. Athletes competed in every type of physical challenge imaginable, the winner of each event given a crown of dark, glossy leaves. Food and cool fruit juices had been brought for us and the exultant mood of the spectators was contagious. By the last event of the morning, the horse races, we had all relaxed and begun to enjoy ourselves.

There was a lull in the action as the competitors cleared the field. In their place thronged a multitude of servants and attendants setting up for the martial events to come. I turned from the view to contemplate the food spread upon a table to the left, wincing when my hand peeled away from the sun-hot railing with a crack of scabs. Paschal had given me an ointment to soften them, to allow me to shoot without ripping the cuts open, but I’d left it in my rooms that morning.

Flexing my fingers and closing my mouth over a hiss of pain, I scrutinized a bowl of round, shining red fruits. They must be a southern crop, I thought, as I’d never seen one before arriving in Marlas. I picked one up, wondering how I was supposed to eat it, when a presence approached from behind. Laurent was in earnest conversation with Orion, Shadel headed down to the pitch for his first event, Nesson brooding in a corner, which only left Damianos and Lady Jokaste—I had no doubts which one of them it was.

Damianos was standing at my shoulder. He nodded at the fruit in my hands and offered, “Let me show you.”

A few days ago, I would have brushed him off as patronizing and either figured it out myself, or set the fruit aside in irritation. Sine I’d put myself back together after the training yard incident, though, we’d been building towards...something. I remembered Lady Jokaste’s advice— _ always running _ —and turned, nodding and holding out the fruit.

Instead of just taking it—a pomegranate, I thought it was called—and cutting it open for me, Damianos indicated a geometric pattern for me to cut into the rind. I did and blinked in surprise when the pomegranate pulled open with ease to reveal a glistening collection of ruby seeds. Grinning at my surprise, Damianos took another one for himself and motioned back towards the seats.

“Come on, they’re about to start again.”

**

Shadel wiped the floor in the shortsword and longsword events. The final longsword matchup, him and Orion, was really the only interesting match—Shadel  _ danced _ like I’d never seen anyone do with a weapon and Orion only kept him on his toes so well because he knew the steps by heart. Orion ended up on his back in the dirt, though, and Shadel kept his sword point down for the required amount of time before hoisting him up with a laugh. 

Orion waited for Shadel to receive his laurels and they ascended back to our seats together, laughing and chattering in Sign. I passed them on my way down—the archery tournament was next, after the javelin throwing currently going on. 

“Good luck!” Shadel called, and Orion’s encouraging smile said the same. I returned the wishes with a shaky smile before continuing down.

Given that I was competing, I’d been spared the torture of elegant clothing for the day. Even still, my leggings, chiton, and wide Vereitan girdle belt were of finer make than anything the rest of the assembled group was wearing. Worse, I’d been offered a bow “befitting my status” for the competition, but I’d flatly refused. My bow was the highest quality in the clans and if I was competing to win, which I was, a new weapon was a terrible idea.

I strung up the silk bowstring and was testing the pull when Paschal approached. I flipped the bow to my other hand before he even asked and shrugged my left shoulder.

“It barely hurts at all, today.”

“Good,” he replied, motioning me over to a window to see the wound in better light. After a moment, he continued, “You and your brother are worried something will happen today.”

I froze, then nodded. I supposed we hadn’t been terribly subtle over the last few days.

“Their Majesties know what’s going on, of course, but...we just wanted to make sure. There are two people here already who’ve survived this,” I indicated my shoulder, “We don’t want to test our luck.”

That earned me a sharp look. “Two?”

“Yes.” I didn’t elaborate. That wasn’t my secret to tell, whatever Nesson’s true secret actually was.

Paschal looked like he was about to say more, but a cheering cacophony echoed around us in the competitors’ chamber, which was my signal to go. “Please stay close,” was all I said before following the rest of the athletes out onto the field. A range of targets had been set and the rules were simple: three arrows shot, the worst three scores eliminated, three more arrows until the last competitor remained.

Goddess bless, it was the height of midday when we began. There were no shadows to speak of and not a cloud in the sky. The ghosts of the road still lurked in the back of my mind, but with everything else to think of and consider, they couldn’t manage to get a foothold. That’s not to say I was unaffected. Down the line, a man misfired and his bowstring twanged, cutting his forearm and causing him to let out a yelp of pain. My stomach twisted and I had to focus on the tearing pain in my draw hand to drown out a wave of panic.

That aside, I shot well the first few rounds and better the longer we went. By the time we’d whittled it down to seven people, I was consistently taking bullseyes and studiously ignoring the blood starting to pool in the lines of my palm. Another round and it was four of us. The crowd around was deafening; they roared their approval, but theirs wasn’t what I was looking for and I didn’t dare look to see if what I wanted was there. Not until I’d won.

My first arrow flew straight and true—dead center and solidly in the target. The second followed suit, the shaft of my first arrow quivering with the impact of another so close against it. The third— The third arrow was an inch off after a slight twinge of my arm coincided with the split in my knuckles widening just enough for the bowstring to catch the open wound. I flinched and jerked my arm back before releasing. 

I swore very quietly in combined Vereitan and Vaskian, which was new, but watched as the rest of the archers let fly their last arrows. I squinted; the targets were far enough away that I couldn’t quite tell who’d scored what, so I had to wait while the officiant examined the arrows we’d shot. We waited, waited, my breath caught behind my chest. I couldn’t look up at the royal box, not yet. Not until I knew.

Then the officiant was back. As before, he went to each athlete, spoke a few words to them, and then they bowed before leaving the pitch and he could move on to the next one. So far, he’d passed me by. I was third-to-last in our lineup, and I tensed when he approached—only to relax into giddy excitement when he walked right past to the last person left on the field,

The shimmering, shaking feeling didn’t abate; not after I’d been brought up to the dais to receive my laurels, not after I’d finally turned my attention to the highest seats and acknowledged my family in triumph, not even after I’d climbed back to sit with them once more. It did, however, start to fade when I asked what the pitch was being reset for.

Two large targets were being erected at either end of the arena with room for at least four horses abreast between each target and the wall. Orion had left to prepare for his last event, so it was up to Shadel to explain the sport we were about to witness. I realized there was a reason neither he nor Orion had mentioned exactly what the penultimate event of these games were to me. This last game, the Okton, was insane and I felt my heart climb further up my throat with every new detail Shadel cheerfully related.

**

The Okton was, of course, Orion’s last event. Shadel mourned he wasn’t allowed to participate as well, but the weapons master had strictly forbidden it. Apparently Shadel’s horsemanship and general skills hadn’t reached the level for him to be attempting such a feat. Orion, nearly seventeen and a better horseman than most clan members I’d seen, had been training for this for months before his excursion to the border had been decided.

I stood at the rail once more, body rigid with tension as the competitors took their marks. Orion was astride his midnight war charger who was calm as still water, ignoring the prancing and fidgeting of the other horses. Both of my hands clamped hard on the stone banister, right hand burning with the fire of an open wound against sandstone. That was fine, though. It kept me grounded enough to not question in vehement horror why this ridiculous sport was still practiced.

I didn’t need to ask, really. The change of the crowd’s tone as the first trumpet blew was answer enough—the people loved this. They loved the danger and the terror and that their rulers had been proven on the deadly figure-eight as well as in battle. Shadel had explained that, during the Unification campaign, Damianos and Laurent had both ridden a perfect Okton in the first Marlas games. This was apparently the sport of Kings.

Even Nesson, who’d been keeping himself carefully apart from events, came closer to watch. He looked about half as shocked as I felt, which meant he almost certainly feeling twice that. Lady Jokaste was watching as well, but with a cold gaze. I wondered if Orion had even told her he was riding. Laurent looked tense, but not overly so; he was the most familiar with Orion’s skills, so if he wasn’t showing overt worry maybe things would be fine. Damianos’s expression was impossible to read.

A cry from the crowd wrenched my attention back to the pitch. No one had been struck, thank the Goddess, but a horse had careened out of the figure-eight pathway in panic and was being reined in by a frantic rider—it wasn’t Orion, though. He was still riding, though I couldn’t tell which spears on the targets were his, or if any of them were. 

Another round, and another—hadn’t we reached eight yet?—and then there were finally no more spears left on the ground and a trumpet blast sounded. I let out a breath I’d been holding for longer than I’d realized. The riders dismounted before the dais with the grand torch, awaiting the formal announcement of the winner though they had to already know between themselves.

It was just when the officiant had raised the final crown of laurels that everything went wrong. A cloud slid over the early-afternoon sun, casting our box into a temporary shadow. In the sudden dusk, movement broke out behind us, swift and sudden and exactly what I’d feared. By the time I’d whipped around, the assassin had slipped between our sun-blind guards and was racing forward.

Laurent was the target and he reacted fast and accurate, twisting to ensure the knife didn’t hit anything vital, but Nesson was faster—how was he  _ always _ faster? Quick as thinking, he knocked Laurent out of the way, the assassin’s knife sinking into his abdomen rather than into into Laurent’s shoulder, as it would have otherwise. His hand shot out in a swift jab to the attacker’s throat which knocked the man backwards, straight into Laurent’s waiting blow to the head with a sword pommel.

I screamed, ducking under Damianos’s out thrown arm to drop to my knees next to Nesson. Laurent let the unconscious attacker fall to the ground, snapping an order to the guards about restraints, then joined me on the ground. Nesson was breathing hard, collapsed and barely propped up on his elbows. Blood stained his vest dark. 

“Why did you do that?” Laurent asked. I hadn’t realized he could ever sound confused. “That knife strike wouldn’t have killed me.”

Nesson laughed tightly. “Give it a minute, Majesty. You’ll see why.”

Something caught my attention. Snaking up from the collar of his shirt was a web of sickening purple lines, far away from his wound but— _ some physicians think it’s alive, the way it acts.  _ It was like the floor dropped out from under me. Nesson also dropped, elbows giving out from under him and his eyes squeezing shut as he gasped in a sharp breath.

Frantic, I reached for the purse at my neck, throwing out the contents haphazardly until I finally had the small vial of clear liquid. I yanked the wax-sealed cork out with my teeth before dumping it unceremoniously into Nesson’s open mouth, clapping my palm to his face so he couldn’t spit it out. Once he’d swallowed, I reached for the knife still lodged in him. Laurent caught me in an iron grip.

“Are you mad? He’ll bleed to death.”

“Not if the poison kills him first.” I snapped back, letting him keep hold of my left wrist while using the other hand to yank the knife out and toss it aside.

The dark stain on Nesson’s vest immediately started to spread and I balled up a corner of his cloak and began to apply pressure. Delayed, Nesson’s arm came up to knock my hand away.

“No!”

I reapplied my efforts, not understanding what he meant until fire lit up my right hand. My open wound, raw and directly in contact with Nesson’s poisoned blood, began to burn. Ah. Well then.

Chaos had exploded around us. Damianos, after confirming Laurent was alright, shouting for a physician; Shadel calling after the runner that they needed to bring Paschal; someone tying up the assassin while another three guards sprinted off to find Orion. Nesson, Laurent, and I existed in the middle, everything faded to background noise. Impressively, Laurent looked even more confused than before.

“You knew. You knew and you still saved me. Why? You don’t strike me as someone who would die willingly for a man just because he’s your king.”

I hissed at Nesson to stay still, but he ignored me and reached into a pocket of his vest. From it, he withdrew something that sparkled—what was it with this family and shiny tokens?—and dropped into Laurent’s hand. A handful of blue sapphires caught between two blue gazes. Laurent went white.

“ _ How? _ ”

“These bastards,” Nesson replied, finally listening to me and falling still, head sinking back to hit the stone floor. “Your—  _ He _ hired them to kill me, as a trial, to see what they could do. Obviously they failed, which is why you’ve never seen them.” 

He coughed and that was definitely blood on his lip. Hadn’t the antidote worked? I was getting dizzy.

“They were kind of shit at the time, underfunded. Before you left, the physician told his family about me, told Berenger too. They got me out, after. He knew, but when he found out he was on his way to Akielos and I was gone. He didn’t know what I... But you had be be forced out of the fort, so—” he stopped, breath coming hard and fast for a second, purple veining crawling up his cheek and over his face, “—I never wanted to see you again, believe me.”   

The world was starting to blur a bit around the edges. My left arm was aching as it had back in Ravenel. Laurent’s voice, when he finally spoke, wasn’t much more than a whisper.

“ _ Nicaise. _ You—” his voice cracked, “I’m so sorry.”

“Now that’s something to take to my grave. Laurent of Vere, apologizing.”

“You’re not going to die,” a voice stole the words right out of my mouth. Someone big, kneeling right behind me. Probably for the best that he had, since my throat had closed up and my mind was beginning to haze over.

There were more words, but that thrice-damned rushing sound was taking over my ears. The world started to fade out in bits and pieces—cold stone, hot blood, shadows and sunlight. Pain flaring everywhere. Blackness eventually took over my vision and I slumped back, letting my father catch me before I collapsed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! Epilogue to follow, but I'm honestly really feeling sick, so it might be a little bit.


	16. Epilogue: 6 months later

“What do you mean, you turned her down?” Shadel was exclaiming, trying to catch up as we made our way from the library towards the palace entryway. I rolled my eyes.

“Exactly what I said. She asked if I wanted to be courted, and I declined.  _ Politely _ , and I don’t think her feelings were hurt that badly.”

We came out into the sunlight of the courtyard, teeming with people and activity. The preparations for our nameday celebration were almost complete, but there were still huge amounts of things to be done. The procession was already forming up for our tour through the city.

Shadel groaned. “Did you turn her down in Akielon? Because if you did, I highly doubt it was that polite. Your pronunciation is still awful and I swear that damn silvertongue is teaching you all the rude phrases on purpose.”

Before I could answer, Shadel was dashing off before coming back, dragging Orion by the arm.

“Orion, tell Tasha she needs to give me all the details about her and Lady Kyra! She won’t listen to me.”

Orion looked between the two of us, bemused. “ _ Why would I do that? If she doesn’t want to talk about it—” _

“Because it’s my nameday and I want you to?”

I started laughing, pushing past them and trying to suppress my blush. “It’s also  _ my  _ nameday and I say we’re done here. I didn’t drop my book to have you two gossiping about my non-existent love life. The court does that enough, yes?”

There was a tapping sound behind us on the stairs—Nesson's cane rapping against each stair as he let it drag behind his quick descent. He hadn’t actually fallen down anything in a month, but the sound still had me turning to make sure he didn’t trip. He heard it and somehow glared directly at me without actually being able to see. 

“I’m  _ fine _ , rat. As I’ve been telling you and His insufferable Majesty for months now, I’m not going to be defeated by a few flights of stairs.”

Shadel snickered. “Says the man who blacked his own eye getting out of bed the morning after midwinter.” And then he jumped out of the way when Nesson’s cane whipped out at his ankles. “Hey! I’m a prince, you know!”

“It’s not a fork, so count your blessings.”  _ Pateros  _ and Father had arrived, then. Mother and Lady Jokaste were already waiting near the horses, which meant we were almost ready to leave.

When we rode out, it was into a city blooming with every flower imaginable. Technically, mine and Shadel’s nameday was a week after the spring equinox, but it’d been decided many years ago that the birth of the empire’s heirs should be wrapped up in the yearly celebration of renewal and rebirth. Cheers rose up as we drew away from the gate. This was my first festival where I wasn’t allowed to just fade into the background.

Nerves aside, I didn’t hate it.

Sometimes I missed the quiet of my old life in the clans. Vask’s foothills and forests had a peace that I hadn’t managed to find in Marlas, as of yet. Usually when those times came, though, some member of my family burst into my space and reminded me what I’d left to come and find. And that I’d found it.

“Tasha? You still with us?”

That was  _ Pateros,  _ breaking me from my thoughts. I smiled.

“Yes, I am.”

And I was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Nicaise is blind because irony. And Tasha doesn't suddenly start calling him Nicaise, mostly because he asked. He doesn't miss his old life or old self at all. He puts up with Laurent and Damen using his old name, but Tasha tried once and he got grouchy, so she didn't do it again.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


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